Before Java 1.7, the standard way to do this is as follows:
import java.util.Random;
/**
* Returns a pseudo-random number between min and max, inclusive.
* The difference between min and max can be at most
* <code>Integer.MAX_VALUE - 1</code>.
*
* @param min Minimum value
* @param max Maximum value. Must be greater than min.
* @return Integer between min and max, inclusive.
* @see java.util.Random#nextInt(int)
*/
public static int randInt(int min, int max) {
// NOTE: This will (intentionally) not run as written so that folks
// copy-pasting have to think about how to initialize their
// Random instance. Initialization of the Random instance is outside
// the main scope of the question, but some decent options are to have
// a field that is initialized once and then re-used as needed or to
// use ThreadLocalRandom (if using at least Java 1.7).
//
// In particular, do NOT do 'Random rand = new Random()' here or you
// will get not very good / not very random results.
Random rand;
// nextInt is normally exclusive of the top value,
// so add 1 to make it inclusive
int randomNum = rand.nextInt((max - min) + 1) + min;
return randomNum;
}