diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index 7172f83a34d..735b073bd1e 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -46,6 +46,8 @@ Core and builtins
 Library
 -------
 
+- os.access now returns True on Windows for any existing directory.
+
 - Issue #1531: tarfile.py: Read fileobj from the current offset, do not
   seek to the start.
 
diff --git a/Modules/posixmodule.c b/Modules/posixmodule.c
index 215930f2a28..aaaa838c275 100644
--- a/Modules/posixmodule.c
+++ b/Modules/posixmodule.c
@@ -1535,8 +1535,11 @@ finish:
 		/* File does not exist, or cannot read attributes */
 		return PyBool_FromLong(0);
 	/* Access is possible if either write access wasn't requested, or
-	   the file isn't read-only. */
-	return PyBool_FromLong(!(mode & 2) || !(attr & FILE_ATTRIBUTE_READONLY));
+	   the file isn't read-only, or if it's a directory, as there are
+	   no read-only directories on Windows. */
+	return PyBool_FromLong(!(mode & 2) 
+	                       || !(attr & FILE_ATTRIBUTE_READONLY)
+			       || (attr & FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY));
 #else
 	int res;
 	if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "eti:access",