diff --git a/Lib/distutils/debug.py b/Lib/distutils/debug.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..7ca76d6c5c6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Lib/distutils/debug.py
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+import os
+
+# If DISTUTILS_DEBUG is anything other than the empty string, we run in
+# debug mode.
+DEBUG = os.environ.get('DISTUTILS_DEBUG')
+