The answer is
  com.whatever.mycompany.MyConstants.MY_CONST

There is no "new instance of it".

I do fully appreciate what those qualifiers mean. I now can see how
you got confused. Ok, let's take the case
where I know this FQN at compile time. I could then do this:

Object myObj = com.whatever.mycompany.MyConstants.MY_CONST;

This is perfectly valid and trivial

Now say I only have the above as a string representing the fully
qualified name?

I could do:
Object myObj = null;
Class c = Class.forName("com.whatever.mycompany.MyConstants");

Field f = c.getField("MY_CONST");
myObject = f.get(null);

But that would be only possible if I knew that Containing class and
the member I needed.

Do you know of a way to access member fields at runtime without
knowing their names?

A database? XML? Commandline? Does it matter?

I assume you mean "can't" -- and indeed it does or may

I don't, miscommunication issue. See above

If I assume that the string passed to me is a member field, I can do
that above reflection. But, such a String could represent a fully
qualified class name. At which point moving back one '.' would put me
at the package level. Can I determine if a FQN is a Class or a Field
in a Class? I know that, when referring to inner classes they are
"com.blah.MyClass$Inner" -- but this isn't an inner class.

I suppose I need a concrete example to really show people that despite
honest bonifide credentials on this subject I am not a rookie. So,
Here goes

public class MyConstants {

   public static final SomeInterface CONST1 = new SomeSubtype() {
        public void interfaceMethod() {}
   };

   public static final SomeInterface CONST2 = new SomeSubtype() {
        public void interfaceMethod() {}
   };

   public static final SomeInterface CONST3 = new SomeSubtype() {
        public void interfaceMethod() {}
   };

}

SomeInterface x = MyConstants.CONST1; // trivial.

SomeInterface X = ..? // do the above given only this string:
"MyConsts.CONST1"; // This string is passed at runtime

Patricia,

there wasn't something easier. But you have correctly identified what
I was trying to ask. I didn't realize it would be so hard. Often times
I ask questions in this group not because I want to implement said
question, but because I am trying to see if it's even possible. Part
of the way I learn is to always push the boundries of what I know is
possible.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions.

Christian Bongiorno