diff --git a/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/api/java/JavaSparkContext.scala b/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/api/java/JavaSparkContext.scala
index a7cfee6d017117126ff6a173c07812b9958f0681..1e0493c4855e0ac1a788ebeb1e82aae145edd538 100644
--- a/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/api/java/JavaSparkContext.scala
+++ b/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/api/java/JavaSparkContext.scala
@@ -41,6 +41,12 @@ import org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD
  * [[org.apache.spark.api.java.JavaRDD]]s and works with Java collections instead of Scala ones.
  */
 class JavaSparkContext(val sc: SparkContext) extends JavaSparkContextVarargsWorkaround {
+  /**
+   * Create a JavaSparkContext that loads settings from system properties (for instance, when
+   * launching with ./bin/spark-submit).
+   */
+  def this() = this(new SparkContext())
+
   /**
    * @param conf a [[org.apache.spark.SparkConf]] object specifying Spark parameters
    */