In order to meet the increasing requirements of manufacturing complex micro-structures, a configuration method of small five-axis machine tool is proposed. The preliminary design of the machine tool includes the total layout, the counterweight part, tool align and monitor device, and so on. By analysis of finite element method, the paper focuses on the influence of position changing of counterweight force on the static displacement of the tool nose. The affect of X-axis unit load in the limit position on the deformation of X-axis unit is also studied. The result provides reasonable parameters for the device optimization. In order to meet requirement of the device's total error, geometric accuracy of the gantry and position accuracy of the axis are analyzed theoretically, and targets of machining accuracy of the gantry and assembly accuracy of the axis are given. According to the theoretical analysis, a micro-precise five-axis machine tool is developed. Spherical surface and complex micro-structure optical compound eye is manufactured by the device. After processing, the deviation of morphology of the spherical surface, with width of 400 μm and depth of 20 μm, is about 0.133 μm, which is measured by surface profiler. Diameter of each ommatidium in the compound eye is 1.31 mm with the surface roughness R less than 0.12 μm. Results show that the performance of the device is good and the theoretical analysis is correct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]