Inputting foreign characters into Excel - ??

Trying to type the classical composer "Dvorak" into Excel. The "r" in Dvorak has a caron above it = ? . According to Keyboard Viewer the caron is input by option/shift 't.' That works perfectly. After that's input, simply type the appropriate letter, 'r' here, which should appear under the caron. It doesn't. The r appears next to it, not under. It doesn't work in Excel, Word, Pages. One way to do it has been to drag the example from Character Palette to Text Edit. But trying to copy that from T.E. to Excel or anything doesn't work. The font I'm using is Lucida Grande, which, according to Character Palette, has the caron-r as part of its set. At the bottom of the C.P. window is the "Insert" button, which does work for Pages, Safari and some other things, but not for Excel or Word.
Word Help doesn't - they support just basic accents.
Any ideas? Much appreciated!
Rick