diff --git a/chromadb/auth/fastapi.py b/chromadb/auth/fastapi.py
index 1f9d3c900c3..a634096805e 100644
--- a/chromadb/auth/fastapi.py
+++ b/chromadb/auth/fastapi.py
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-import chromadb
 from contextvars import ContextVar
 from functools import wraps
 import logging
@@ -28,7 +27,7 @@
 )
 from chromadb.auth.registry import resolve_provider
 from chromadb.errors import AuthorizationError
-from chromadb.server.fastapi.utils import fastapi_json_response
+from chromadb.utils.fastapi import fastapi_json_response
 from chromadb.telemetry.opentelemetry import (
     OpenTelemetryGranularity,
     trace_method,
@@ -117,7 +116,7 @@ def instrument_server(self, app: ASGIApp) -> None:
         raise NotImplementedError("Not implemented yet")
 
 
-class FastAPIChromaAuthMiddlewareWrapper(BaseHTTPMiddleware):  # type: ignore
+class FastAPIChromaAuthMiddlewareWrapper(BaseHTTPMiddleware):
     def __init__(
         self, app: ASGIApp, auth_middleware: FastAPIChromaAuthMiddleware
     ) -> None:
@@ -302,7 +301,7 @@ def instrument_server(self, app: ASGIApp) -> None:
         raise NotImplementedError("Not implemented yet")
 
 
-class FastAPIChromaAuthzMiddlewareWrapper(BaseHTTPMiddleware):  # type: ignore
+class FastAPIChromaAuthzMiddlewareWrapper(BaseHTTPMiddleware):
     def __init__(
         self, app: ASGIApp, authz_middleware: FastAPIChromaAuthzMiddleware
     ) -> None:
diff --git a/chromadb/auth/fastapi_utils.py b/chromadb/auth/fastapi_utils.py
index 2612bf6716f..9dc652feeb9 100644
--- a/chromadb/auth/fastapi_utils.py
+++ b/chromadb/auth/fastapi_utils.py
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 from functools import partial
 from typing import Any, Callable, Dict, Optional, Sequence, cast
-from chromadb.server.fastapi.utils import string_to_uuid
+from chromadb.utils.fastapi import string_to_uuid
 from chromadb.api import ServerAPI
 from chromadb.auth import AuthzResourceTypes
 
diff --git a/chromadb/server/fastapi/__init__.py b/chromadb/server/fastapi/__init__.py
index a38225de7f3..fa057b90d29 100644
--- a/chromadb/server/fastapi/__init__.py
+++ b/chromadb/server/fastapi/__init__.py
@@ -51,7 +51,7 @@
 
 import logging
 
-from chromadb.server.fastapi.utils import fastapi_json_response, string_to_uuid as _uuid
+from chromadb.utils.fastapi import fastapi_json_response, string_to_uuid as _uuid
 from chromadb.telemetry.opentelemetry.fastapi import instrument_fastapi
 from chromadb.types import Database, Tenant
 from chromadb.telemetry.product import ServerContext, ProductTelemetryClient
diff --git a/chromadb/test/client/create_http_client_with_basic_auth.py b/chromadb/test/client/create_http_client_with_basic_auth.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..2f884c571c1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/chromadb/test/client/create_http_client_with_basic_auth.py
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+# This file is used by test_create_http_client.py to test the initialization
+# of an HttpClient class with auth settings.
+#
+# See https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/issues/1554
+
+import chromadb
+from chromadb.config import Settings
+import sys
+
+def main() -> None:
+    try:
+        chromadb.HttpClient(
+            host='localhost',
+            port=8000,
+            settings=Settings(
+                chroma_client_auth_provider="chromadb.auth.basic.BasicAuthClientProvider",
+                chroma_client_auth_credentials="admin:testDb@home2"
+            )
+        )
+    except ValueError:
+        # We don't expect to be able to connect to Chroma. We just want to make sure
+        # there isn't an ImportError.
+        sys.exit(0)
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    main()
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/chromadb/test/client/test_create_http_client.py b/chromadb/test/client/test_create_http_client.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..293e5031ba9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/chromadb/test/client/test_create_http_client.py
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+import subprocess
+
+# Needs to be a module, not a file, so that local imports work.
+TEST_MODULE = "chromadb.test.client.create_http_client_with_basic_auth"
+
+
+def test_main() -> None:
+    # This is the only way to test what we want to test: pytest does a bunch of
+    # importing and other module stuff in the background, so we need a clean
+    # python process to make sure we're not circular-importing.
+    #
+    # See https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/issues/1554
+
+    res = subprocess.run(['python', '-m', TEST_MODULE])
+    assert res.returncode == 0
diff --git a/chromadb/server/fastapi/utils.py b/chromadb/utils/fastapi.py
similarity index 98%
rename from chromadb/server/fastapi/utils.py
rename to chromadb/utils/fastapi.py
index b7e781dae68..8300880e402 100644
--- a/chromadb/server/fastapi/utils.py
+++ b/chromadb/utils/fastapi.py
@@ -10,8 +10,9 @@ def fastapi_json_response(error: ChromaError) -> JSONResponse:
         status_code=error.code(),
     )
 
+
 def string_to_uuid(uuid_str: str) -> UUID:
     try:
         return UUID(uuid_str)
     except ValueError:
-        raise InvalidUUIDError(f"Could not parse {uuid_str} as a UUID")
\ No newline at end of file
+        raise InvalidUUIDError(f"Could not parse {uuid_str} as a UUID")