An alternative original approach to achieve single-transverse-mode laser emissions from multimode (MM) active fibers is demonstrated. The fiber cavity is constructed by simply splicing a conventional passive single-mode fiber (SMF-28) onto a few centimeters-long active MM fiber section whose length is precisely controlled. Owing to the self-imaging property of multimode interference (MMI) in the MM fiber, diffraction-limited laser output is obtained from the end of the SMF-28, and the MMI fiber laser is nearly as efficient as the corresponding MM fiber laser. Moreover, because of the spectral filtering effect during in-phase MMI, the bandwidth of the MMI fiber laser is below 0.5 nm.