Auto-copy to clipboard

[Tim Johnson]

Using GNU Emacs 22.1.1, kubuntu 7.1 with KDE 3.5.8

I'd like to able to
1)compose a string of text (that's easy)
2)Send that string directly to the clipboard,
  just as if I had inserted that text into
  the buffer, selected it and done kill-ring-save
  or kill-region.

Is there a function to do that?
If not, suggestions are welcome and pointers to docs
encouraged.
thanks
Tim