diff --git a/external/kafka/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/streaming/kafka/KafkaUtils.scala b/external/kafka/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/streaming/kafka/KafkaUtils.scala
index af04bc6576148..62a659518943d 100644
--- a/external/kafka/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/streaming/kafka/KafkaUtils.scala
+++ b/external/kafka/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/streaming/kafka/KafkaUtils.scala
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ import scala.collection.JavaConversions._
 
 import kafka.common.TopicAndPartition
 import kafka.message.MessageAndMetadata
-import kafka.serializer.{Decoder, StringDecoder}
+import kafka.serializer.{DefaultDecoder, Decoder, StringDecoder}
 
 import org.apache.spark.api.java.function.{Function => JFunction}
 import org.apache.spark.{SparkContext, SparkException}
@@ -532,3 +532,30 @@ object KafkaUtils {
     )
   }
 }
+
+/**
+ * This is a helper class that wraps the KafkaUtils.createStream() into more
+ * Python-friendly class and function so that it can be easily
+ * instantiated and called from Python's KafkaUtils (see SPARK-6027).
+ *
+ * The zero-arg constructor helps instantiate this class from the Class object
+ * classOf[KafkaUtilsPythonHelper].newInstance(), and the createStream()
+ * takes care of known parameters instead of passing them from Python
+ */
+private class KafkaUtilsPythonHelper {
+  def createStream(
+      jssc: JavaStreamingContext,
+      kafkaParams: JMap[String, String],
+      topics: JMap[String, JInt],
+      storageLevel: StorageLevel): JavaPairReceiverInputDStream[Array[Byte], Array[Byte]] = {
+    KafkaUtils.createStream[Array[Byte], Array[Byte], DefaultDecoder, DefaultDecoder](
+      jssc,
+      classOf[Array[Byte]],
+      classOf[Array[Byte]],
+      classOf[DefaultDecoder],
+      classOf[DefaultDecoder],
+      kafkaParams,
+      topics,
+      storageLevel)
+  }
+}
diff --git a/python/pyspark/streaming/kafka.py b/python/pyspark/streaming/kafka.py
index 19ad71f99d4d5..0002dc10e8a17 100644
--- a/python/pyspark/streaming/kafka.py
+++ b/python/pyspark/streaming/kafka.py
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@
 #
 
 from py4j.java_collections import MapConverter
-from py4j.java_gateway import java_import, Py4JError
+from py4j.java_gateway import java_import, Py4JError, Py4JJavaError
 
 from pyspark.storagelevel import StorageLevel
 from pyspark.serializers import PairDeserializer, NoOpSerializer
@@ -50,8 +50,6 @@ def createStream(ssc, zkQuorum, groupId, topics, kafkaParams={},
         :param valueDecoder:  A function used to decode value (default is utf8_decoder)
         :return: A DStream object
         """
-        java_import(ssc._jvm, "org.apache.spark.streaming.kafka.KafkaUtils")
-
         kafkaParams.update({
             "zookeeper.connect": zkQuorum,
             "group.id": groupId,
@@ -63,20 +61,34 @@ def createStream(ssc, zkQuorum, groupId, topics, kafkaParams={},
         jparam = MapConverter().convert(kafkaParams, ssc.sparkContext._gateway._gateway_client)
         jlevel = ssc._sc._getJavaStorageLevel(storageLevel)
 
-        def getClassByName(name):
-            return ssc._jvm.org.apache.spark.util.Utils.classForName(name)
-
         try:
-            array = getClassByName("[B")
-            decoder = getClassByName("kafka.serializer.DefaultDecoder")
-            jstream = ssc._jvm.KafkaUtils.createStream(ssc._jssc, array, array, decoder, decoder,
-                                                       jparam, jtopics, jlevel)
-        except Py4JError, e:
+            # Use KafkaUtilsPythonHelper to access Scala's KafkaUtils (see SPARK-6027)
+            helperClass = ssc._jvm.java.lang.Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader()\
+                .loadClass("org.apache.spark.streaming.kafka.KafkaUtilsPythonHelper")
+            helper = helperClass.newInstance()
+            jstream = helper.createStream(ssc._jssc, jparam, jtopics, jlevel)
+        except Py4JJavaError, e:
             # TODO: use --jar once it also work on driver
-            if not e.message or 'call a package' in e.message:
-                print "No kafka package, please put the assembly jar into classpath:"
-                print " $ bin/spark-submit --driver-class-path external/kafka-assembly/target/" + \
-                      "scala-*/spark-streaming-kafka-assembly-*.jar"
+            if 'ClassNotFoundException' in str(e.java_exception):
+                print """
+________________________________________________________________________________________________
+
+  Spark Streaming's Kafka libraries not found in class path. Try one of the following.
+
+  1. Include the Kafka library and its dependencies with in the
+     spark-submit command as
+
+     $ bin/spark-submit --packages org.apache.spark:spark-streaming-kafka:%s ...
+
+  2. Download the JAR of the artifact from Maven Central http://search.maven.org/,
+     Group Id = org.apache.spark, Artifact Id = spark-streaming-kafka-assembly, Version = %s.
+     Then, innclude the jar in the spark-submit command as
+
+     $ bin/spark-submit --jars <spark-streaming-kafka-assembly.jar> ...
+
+________________________________________________________________________________________________
+
+""" % (ssc.sparkContext.version, ssc.sparkContext.version)
             raise e
         ser = PairDeserializer(NoOpSerializer(), NoOpSerializer())
         stream = DStream(jstream, ssc, ser)