I would like to update one module in a python package with my own version of the module, with the following conditions: I want my updated module to live outside of the original package (either because I don't have access to the package source, or because I want to keep my local modifications in a separate repo, etc). I want import statements that refer to original package/module to resolve to my local module Here's an example of what I'd like to do using specifics from django, because that's where this problem has arisen for me: Say this is my project structure django/ ... the original, unadulterated django package ... local_django/ conf/ settings.py myproject/ __init__.py myapp/ myfile.py And then in myfile.py # These imports should fetch modules from the original django package from django import models from django.core.urlresolvers import reverse # I would like this following import statement to grab a custom version of settings # that I define in local_django/conf/settings.py from django.conf import settings def foo(): return settings.some_setting Can I do some magic with the __import__ statement in myproject/__init__.py to accomplish this? Is there a more "pythonic" way to achieve this?