Stationary, spherical accretion onto an unmagnetized neutron star is here reconsidered on the wake of the seminal paper by Zel’dovich & Shakura (1969). It is found that new ‘‘hot’’ solutions may exist for a wide range of luminosities. These solutions are characterized by a high temperature, 109÷1011K, and arise from a stationary equilibrium model where the dominant radiative mechanisms are multiple Compton scattering and bremsstrahlung emission. For low luminosities, ≲10−2LE, only the ‘‘cold’’ (a` la Zel’dovich and Shakura) solution is present. ©1994 American Institute of Physics.