A hollow light guide illumination system is provided for coupling light from an illumination source (60) to a hollow light guide (62), which is used for a variety of purposes, such as tunnels, hallways, and large rooms where direct lighting is dangerous, difficult to maintain or subject to vandalism. The illumination system employs an illumination reflector (77) which has been customized to maximize the efficiency of light transmission between the illumination source (60), such as an arc lamp, and the core of the hollow light guide (62). A method of fabricating the customized illumination reflector (77) includes mapping the radiation patterns of the particular illumination source (60) to be utilized, creating a database of those radiation patterns, and utilizing the database to generate an optimal illumination reflector (77) configuration. The computer-generated reflector (77) will virtually always be a non-conic section, because the illumination source (60) is not ideal.