diff --git a/ext/java/nokogiri/XmlNodeSet.java b/ext/java/nokogiri/XmlNodeSet.java
index ea8b031ab1..931ab3d7eb 100644
--- a/ext/java/nokogiri/XmlNodeSet.java
+++ b/ext/java/nokogiri/XmlNodeSet.java
@@ -39,6 +39,7 @@
 import java.util.Arrays;
 
 import org.jruby.Ruby;
+import org.jruby.RubyArray;
 import org.jruby.RubyClass;
 import org.jruby.RubyFixnum;
 import org.jruby.RubyObject;
@@ -392,7 +393,7 @@ public IRubyObject subseq(ThreadContext context, int start, int length) {
     }
 
     @JRubyMethod(name = {"to_a", "to_ary"})
-    public IRubyObject to_a(ThreadContext context) {
+    public RubyArray to_a(ThreadContext context) {
         return context.runtime.newArrayNoCopy(nodes);
     }