The CreateObject function can create an instance of a ColdFusion component (CFC) object.

A component object.

CreateObject(type, component-name) 

Chapter 10, "Building and Using ColdFusion Components" in ColdFusion MX Developer's Guide

On UNIX systems, ColdFusion searches first for a file with a name that matches the specified component name, but is all lowercase. If it does not find the file, it looks for a file name that matches the component name exactly, with the identical character casing.

In the following example, the CFScript statements assign the tellTimeCFC variable to the tellTime component using the CreateObject function. The CreateObject function references the component in another directory. To invoke component methods, you use function syntax.

<b>Server's Local Time:</b>
<cfscript>
   tellTimeCFC=CreateObject("component","appResources.components.
      tellTime");
   tellTimeCFC.getLocalTime();      
</cfscript>
<br>
<b>Calculated UTC Time:</b>
<cfscript>
   tellTimeCFC.getUTCTime();
</cfscript>