A system and method for integrating legacy code into a component-based system. A component-based system is provided that allows legacy components to locate necessary artifacts, and includes: a context finder that is installed as a context classloader, wherein the context finder analyzes an execution stack to identify a component that initiated a context classloader call during runtime; and a buddy loading system that examines the component to determine if the component requires buddy loading to locate an artifact and locates the artifact using a predefined policy.