  Roughly 25% of the optical extragalactic sky is obscured by the dust and
stars of our Milky Way. Dynamically important structures might still lie hidden
in this zone. Various surveys are presently being employed to uncover the
galaxy distribution in the Zone of Avoidance (ZOA) but all suffer from
(different) limitations and selection effects.
  We illustrate the promise of using a multi-wavelength approach for
extragalactic large-scale studies behind the ZOA, i.e. a combination of three
surveys -- optical, systematic blind HI and near-infrared (NIR), which will
allow the mapping of the peculiar velocity field in the ZOA through the NIR
Tully-Fisher relation. In particular, we present here the results of
cross-identifying HI-detected galaxies with the DENIS NIR survey, and the use
of NIR colours to determine foreground extinctions.
