In this paper we
give a constructive proof of an abstract approximation theorem inspired
by the celebrated result of V. I. Lomonosov. This theorem is applied to
obtain an alternative proof of some recent characterizations of the invariant
subspace problem. We also establish density of non-cyclic vectors for the dual
of a set of compact quasinilpotent operators, and conclude with the open
problem of obtaining a similar result for the original set, rather than its
dual.