The hplip project will probably supply what you need. You might want to look if you have it already. After installation, use "sudo /path/to/makeuri <printers IP>" to generate a URI to use for the printer. Then configure the printer in the cups interface.
On some systems, entering root and the root password when the requester comes up (using the cups web interface) won't work. If that is the case, use the lppasswd program to create a user/password combo to use instead. This was the case when I used SuSE 10.0. I simply used my own username and passwd.
http://hplip.sourceforge.net/install/installtree.html