The following unit test will fail to compile. If the return value is changed to simply "SelfRef.class" everything works fine. public void testAccessingCompilingClass() throws Exception { SimpleCompiler sc = new SimpleCompiler(); sc.cook("package test.simple;" + "public class SelfRef {" + " public Class getSelf() {" + " return test.simple.SelfRef.class;" + " }" + "}" ); Class self = sc.getClassLoader().loadClass("test.simple.SelfRef"); Method m = self.getDeclaredMethod("getSelf", null); Object inst = self.newInstance(); Class res = (Class)m.invoke(inst, null); assertEquals(self, res); }