A system and method can support a transactional system in a heterogeneous computing environment. The transactional system can provide one or more buffers, wherein said one or more buffers operate to represent one or more data structures in a mainframe computing environment in the heterogeneous computing environment. Also, the transactional system can provide a transactional adaptor, which operates to convert one or more data elements between said one or more data structures in the mainframe computing environment and said one or more buffers in the transactional system.