diff --git a/scrapy/tests/test_libxml2.py b/scrapy/tests/test_libxml2.py
index 82f2ea0c9..e042de526 100644
--- a/scrapy/tests/test_libxml2.py
+++ b/scrapy/tests/test_libxml2.py
@@ -11,8 +11,9 @@ class Libxml2Test(unittest.TestCase):
     @libxml2debug
     def test_libxml2_bug_2_6_27(self):
         # this test will fail in version 2.6.27 but passes on 2.6.29+
+        import libxml2
         html = "<td>1<b>2</b>3</td>"
-        node = self.libxml2.htmlParseDoc(html, 'utf-8')
+        node = libxml2.htmlParseDoc(html, 'utf-8')
         result = [str(r) for r in node.xpathEval('//text()')]
         self.assertEquals(result, ['1', '2', '3'])
         node.freeDoc()