How can I place an image on an AWT button?

Subclass Button and override the paint method.

public void paint(Graphics g) {
  // call super's paint method
  super.paint(g);

  g.drawImage(...); // use any of the many drawImage variants here !
}

public Dimension getPreferredSize()

public Dimension getMinimumSize()

public Dimension getMaximumSize()

also so that the layout managers can deal with the size of the Button correctly.