diff --git a/hopper/setup.py b/hopper/setup.py
index d9f4bad4ccd..7ed8abce15f 100644
--- a/hopper/setup.py
+++ b/hopper/setup.py
@@ -427,7 +427,7 @@ def nvcc_threads_args():
             f"https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/redist/cuda_nvcc/{system}-{arch}/cuda_nvcc-{system}-{arch}-{version}-archive.tar.xz",
         )
         base_dir = os.path.dirname(__file__)
-        ctk_path_new = os.path.join(base_dir, os.pardir, "third_party", "nvidia", "backend", "bin")
+        ctk_path_new = os.path.abspath(os.path.join(base_dir, os.pardir, "third_party", "nvidia", "backend", "bin"))
         nvcc_path_new = os.path.join(ctk_path_new, f"nvcc{exe_extension}")
         # Need to append to path otherwise nvcc can't find cicc in nvvm/bin/cicc
         # nvcc 12.8 seems to hard-code looking for cicc in ../nvvm/bin/cicc