diff --git a/Library/Homebrew/global.rb b/Library/Homebrew/global.rb
index f248ce36ed..54b169d758 100644
--- a/Library/Homebrew/global.rb
+++ b/Library/Homebrew/global.rb
@@ -10,7 +10,9 @@ ARGV.extend(HomebrewArgvExtension)
 HOMEBREW_VERSION = '0.8'
 HOMEBREW_WWW = 'http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/'
 
-HOMEBREW_CACHE = if Process.uid == 0
+HOMEBREW_CACHE = if ENV['HOMEBREW_CACHE']
+  Pathname.new(ENV['HOMEBREW_CACHE'])
+elsif Process.uid == 0
   # technically this is not the correct place, this cache is for *all users*
   # so in that case, maybe we should always use it, root or not?
   Pathname.new("/Library/Caches/Homebrew")