diff --git a/contrib/mkimage-debian.sh b/contrib/mkimage-debian.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..64cd139224
--- /dev/null
+++ b/contrib/mkimage-debian.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+set -e
+
+latestSuite='wheezy'
+
+repo="$1"
+suite="${2:-$latestSuite}"
+mirror="${3:-http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian}"
+
+if [ ! "$repo" ]; then
+	echo >&2 "usage: $0 repo [suite [mirror]]"
+	echo >&2 "   ie: $0 tianon/debian squeeze"
+	exit 1
+fi
+
+target="/tmp/docker-rootfs-$$-$RANDOM-debian-$suite"
+
+cd "$(dirname "$(readlink -f "$BASH_SOURCE")")"
+returnTo="$(pwd -P)"
+
+set -x
+
+# bootstrap
+mkdir -p "$target"
+sudo debootstrap --verbose --variant=minbase --include=iproute,iputils-ping "$suite" "$target" "$mirror"
+
+cd "$target"
+
+# create the image
+img=$(sudo tar -c . | docker import -)
+
+# tag suite
+docker tag $img $repo $suite
+
+if [ "$suite" = "$latestSuite" ]; then
+	# tag latest
+	docker tag $img $repo latest
+fi
+
+# test the image
+docker run -i -t $repo:$suite echo success
+
+# cleanup
+cd "$returnTo"
+sudo rm -rf "$target"