so what I was thinking to do, which is why I got there error, was to have a file (file b) containing the internal class in the same package as (file a) but not have the contents of file b visible outside of the package but still the class in (file a) be able to return the the internal class from a protected method in file a... so I guess i should just forget about trying to do this? Is it ok to change the visiblity from internal to protected?