The singleton library does not work on VC70, and I am having difficulty figuring out a work-around. Below, I have written a stripped down version of the singleton hierarchy which demonstrates the problem. Can someone more familiar with VC70 think of a way to make the code compile? I suspect I need an extra level of indirection somewhere, but I'm not sure quite where to put it. Thanks in advance. template < typename Type > struct creator { struct creatable : public Type // --- ERROR HERE, SAYS TYPE IS NOT YET DEFINED --- { }; }; template < typename Type > struct lifetime { creator < Type > my_creator; struct pointer { }; }; template < typename Type > struct singleton { struct pointer : public lifetime < Type >::pointer { }; }; // client code struct client_singleton : public singleton < client_singleton > { };