Cursor the only way to go??

I have an application that wants to browse a table given some filters. What is the most efficient way to do this? It is expected that the table will be large and the filter may be made of several columns from the table. What I would like to avoid is for the process to block while sucking up all the data and giving it to me in one big blob. I was thinking fetches sufficient to fill a page of a scrollBox and everytime the user scrolls, i fetch another bunch of rows. Will the initial scan with Cursor take just as long as a normal SELECT?