diff --git a/Lib/pydoc.py b/Lib/pydoc.py
--- a/Lib/pydoc.py
+++ b/Lib/pydoc.py
@@ -1458,8 +1458,13 @@ def locate(path, forceload=0):
             except AttributeError: return None
         return object
     else:
-        if hasattr(builtins, path):
-            return getattr(builtins, path)
+        if len(parts) > 0:
+            # this block resolves strings like 'str' or 'str.translate'
+            if hasattr(builtins, parts[0]):
+                result = builtins
+                for name in parts:
+                    result = getattr(result, name)
+                return result
 
 # --------------------------------------- interactive interpreter interface
 
diff --git a/Lib/test/test_pydoc.py b/Lib/test/test_pydoc.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_pydoc.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_pydoc.py
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ import sys
 import os
 import os.path
 import difflib
+import builtins
 import subprocess
 import re
 import pydoc
@@ -344,6 +345,16 @@ class TestDescriptions(unittest.TestCase
         expected = 'C in module %s object' % __name__
         self.assertTrue(expected in pydoc.render_doc(c))
 
+    def test_builtin(self):
+        objects = [str, str.translate, builtins.str, builtins.str.translate,
+                   'str', 'str.translate', 'builtins.str',
+                   'builtins.str.translate']
+        for o in objects:
+            try:
+                pydoc.render_doc(o)
+            except ImportError:
+                self.fail('finding the doc of {!r} failed'.format(o))
+
 
 class TestHelper(unittest.TestCase):
     def test_keywords(self):
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -75,6 +75,9 @@ Core and Builtins
 Library
 -------
 
+- Issue #8887: "pydoc somebuiltin.somemethod" (or help('somebuiltin.somemethod')
+  in Python code) now finds the doc of the method.
+
 - Issue #12175: RawIOBase.readall() now returns None if read() returns None.
 
 - Issue #12175: FileIO.readall() now raises a ValueError instead of an IOError