Spannable str = new SpannableStringBuilder("How can I achieve such an effect with an Android TextView. It looks somehow like selected text and I couldn't find something similar in the API.");
str.setSpan(new NewSpannableClass(), 0, str.length() - 1, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
((TextView)findViewById(R.id.text)).setText(str);

<TextView
android:background="#0000FF"
android:textColor="#FFFFFF" />

<TextView
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:background="#0000FF"
    android:textColor="#FFFFFF" />

<TextView android:background="#0000FF">

android:background="#0088FF"

<TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:background="#0088FF"
        android:text="@string/your-text"
        android:textColor="#FFFFFF"
        android:textSize="18sp"
        android:textStyle="bold" />

<TextView
            android:id="@+id/comment_dis"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:gravity="center"
            android:text="Stack Overflow
            android:textColor="#ffffff"
            android:background="#3cabdc"/>

<LinearLayout
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:background="#000000" >

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:textColor="#FFFFFF"
        android:text="@string/text" />

</LinearLayout>

<TextView
            android:id="@+id/TextView"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:gravity="center"
            android:textColor="#ffffff"
            android:background="#1bgtbgt"/>

text.setBackgroundColor( int color);