If you use the Google library [1], this becomes a bit more convenient that the built-in Java way:

   List<String> people = ImmutableList.of("Frank", "Mary", "Bob");

There's also ImmutableSet and many other goodies, to say the least. For instantiation of these generic types, you can do:

   List<String> people = Lists.newArrayList(); 
   Map<String,Integer> scores = Maps.newHashMap();

and so on.

[1] http://code.google.com/p/guava-libraries/