diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index a77e76ffe2354..7785b59a1c142 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ compiler:
 notifications:
     email: false
 before_install:
-    - BUILDOPTS="LLVM_CONFIG=llvm-config-3.2 USE_QUIET=0 USE_LIB64=0"; for lib in LLVM ZLIB SUITESPARSE ARPACK BLAS FFTW LAPACK GMP PCRE LIBUNWIND READLINE GRISU OPENLIBM RMATH LIBUV; do export BUILDOPTS="$BUILDOPTS USE_SYSTEM_$lib=1"; done
+    - BUILDOPTS="LLVM_CONFIG=llvm-config-3.2 USE_QUIET=0 USE_LIB64=0"; for lib in LLVM ZLIB SUITESPARSE ARPACK BLAS FFTW LAPACK GMP MPFR PCRE LIBUNWIND READLINE GRISU OPENLIBM RMATH LIBUV; do export BUILDOPTS="$BUILDOPTS USE_SYSTEM_$lib=1"; done
     - sudo apt-get update -qq -y
     - sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev
     - sudo add-apt-repository ppa:staticfloat/julia-deps -y
diff --git a/LICENSE.md b/LICENSE.md
index 7f58931c0a54b..fb06837f22f72 100644
--- a/LICENSE.md
+++ b/LICENSE.md
@@ -58,6 +58,7 @@ External libraries, if used, include their own licenses:
 - [LAPACK](http://netlib.org/lapack/LICENSE.txt)
 - [LIBUNWIND](http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=libunwind.git;a=blob_plain;f=LICENSE;hb=master)
 - [LLVM](http://llvm.org/releases/3.0/LICENSE.TXT)
+- [MPFR](http://www.mpfr.org/mpfr-current/mpfr.html#Copying)
 - [OPENBLAS](https://raw.github.com/xianyi/OpenBLAS/master/LICENSE)
 - [PCRE](http://www.pcre.org/licence.txt)
 - [READLINE](http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/php/chet/readline/rltop.html)
diff --git a/Make.inc b/Make.inc
index 8b781055b59f3..99c380f50ab19 100644
--- a/Make.inc
+++ b/Make.inc
@@ -163,6 +163,7 @@ USE_SYSTEM_BLAS=0
 USE_SYSTEM_LAPACK=0
 USE_SYSTEM_FFTW=0
 USE_SYSTEM_GMP=0
+USE_SYSTEM_MPFR=0
 USE_SYSTEM_ARPACK=0
 USE_SYSTEM_SUITESPARSE=0
 USE_SYSTEM_ZLIB=0
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 37c1777a3bda7..b5b4bd7c39c3c 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ JL_PRIVATE_LIBS = amd arpack camd ccolamd cholmod colamd \
                   fftw3 fftw3f fftw3_threads fftw3f_threads \
                   gmp grisu openlibm openlibm-extras pcre \
                   random Rmath spqr suitesparse_wrapper \
-                  umfpack z openblas
+                  umfpack z openblas mpfr
 
 PREFIX ?= julia-$(JULIA_COMMIT)
 install:
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 0d756c88326ef..2b1cc09b5ad55 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -152,6 +152,7 @@ Julia uses the following external libraries, which are automatically downloaded
 - **[FFTW]**                — library for computing fast Fourier transforms very quickly and efficiently.
 - **[PCRE]**                — Perl-compatible regular expressions library.
 - **[GMP]**                 — the GNU multiple precision arithmetic library, needed for bigint support.
+- **[MPFR]**                — the GNU multiple precision floating point library, needed for bigfloat support.
 - **[double-conversion]**   — efficient number-to-text conversion.
 - **[Rmath]**               — basic RNGs and distributions.
 
@@ -179,6 +180,7 @@ Julia uses the following external libraries, which are automatically downloaded
 [FemtoLisp]:    https://github.com/JeffBezanson/femtolisp
 [readline]:     http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/php/chet/readline/rltop.html
 [GMP]:          http://gmplib.org/
+[MPFR]:         http://www.mpfr.org/
 [double-conversion]: http://double-conversion.googlecode.com/
 [Rmath]:        http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-admin.html#The-standalone-Rmath-library
 [libuv]:        https://github.com/JuliaLang/libuv