diff --git a/lib/restclient/request.rb b/lib/restclient/request.rb
index 6841d2e..7ea0d43 100644
--- a/lib/restclient/request.rb
+++ b/lib/restclient/request.rb
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 require 'tempfile'
 require 'mime/types'
 require 'cgi'
+require 'netrc'
 
 module RestClient
   # This class is used internally by RestClient to send the request, but you can also
@@ -116,6 +117,9 @@ module RestClient
       uri = parse_url(url)
       @user = CGI.unescape(uri.user) if uri.user
       @password = CGI.unescape(uri.password) if uri.password
+      if !@user && !@password
+        @user, @password = Netrc.read[uri.host]
+      end
       uri
     end
 
diff --git a/rest-client.gemspec b/rest-client.gemspec
index 8e1e4cb..67ee18f 100644
--- a/rest-client.gemspec
+++ b/rest-client.gemspec
@@ -72,5 +72,6 @@ Gem::Specification.new do |s|
     s.add_dependency(%q<webmock>, [">= 0.9.1"])
     s.add_dependency(%q<rspec>, [">= 0"])
   end
+  s.add_dependency(%q<netrc>, [">= 0"])
 end
 
diff --git a/spec/request_spec.rb b/spec/request_spec.rb
index 89e01f6..ccb8d3c 100644
--- a/spec/request_spec.rb
+++ b/spec/request_spec.rb
@@ -109,6 +109,24 @@ describe RestClient::Request do
     @request.make_headers({}).should == { 'Foo' => 'bar', 'Cookie' => 'session_id=1; user_id=someone'}
   end
 
+  it "uses netrc credentials" do
+    URI.stub!(:parse).and_return(mock('uri', :user => nil, :password => nil, :host => 'example.com'))
+    File.stub!(:stat).and_return(mock('stat', :mode => 0600))
+    IO.stub!(:readlines).and_return(["machine example.com login a password b"])
+    @request.parse_url_with_auth('http://example.com/resource')
+    @request.user.should == 'a'
+    @request.password.should == 'b'
+  end
+
+  it "uses credentials in the url in preference to netrc" do
+    URI.stub!(:parse).and_return(mock('uri', :user => 'joe%20', :password => 'pass1', :host => 'example.com'))
+    File.stub!(:stat).and_return(mock('stat', :mode => 0600))
+    IO.stub!(:readlines).and_return(["machine example.com login a password b"])
+    @request.parse_url_with_auth('http://joe%20:pass1@example.com/resource')
+    @request.user.should == 'joe '
+    @request.password.should == 'pass1'
+  end
+
   it "determines the Net::HTTP class to instantiate by the method name" do
     @request.net_http_request_class(:put).should == Net::HTTP::Put
   end