One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates importing static members of a class. During operation, the system examines code associated with a compilation unit to locate a static import declaration that identifies one or more static members of the class to import. Upon finding such a static import declaration, the system records the static import declaration in a symbol table used to compile the compilation unit. This allows the names for the one or more static members of the class to appear within the compilation unit without being prefixed with a name for the class.