Most autoconf generated configure script will allow you to make a static build:
autoconf
configure
./configure --enable-static make
If that doesn't work, you may be able to pass linker flags in via LDFLAGS, like this:
LDFLAGS
./configure LDFLAGS=-static
Yeah, you need to edit the make file and add the -static parameter to gcc during the link.
If you cannot compile a static binary, I've had good results using Statifier.