diff --git a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/xsbench/package.py b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/xsbench/package.py
index 6cf5e04d77..db84ec5b3d 100644
--- a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/xsbench/package.py
+++ b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/xsbench/package.py
@@ -35,23 +35,29 @@ class Xsbench(MakefilePackage):
     homepage = "https://github.com/ANL-CESAR/XSBench/"
     url = "https://github.com/ANL-CESAR/XSBench/archive/v13.tar.gz"
 
+    tags = ['proxy-app']
+
     version('13', '72a92232d2f5777fb52f5ea4082aff37')
 
     variant('mpi', default=False, description='Build with MPI support')
 
     depends_on('mpi', when='+mpi')
 
+    build_directory = 'src'
+
     @property
     def build_targets(self):
 
-        targets = [
-            '--directory=src',
-        ]
+        targets = []
 
+        cflags = '-std=gnu99'
         if '+mpi' in self.spec:
-            targets.append('MPI=yes')
             targets.append('CC={0}'.format(self.spec['mpi'].mpicc))
 
+        cflags += ' ' + self.compiler.openmp_flag
+        targets.append('CFLAGS={0}'.format(cflags))
+        targets.append('LDFLAGS=-lm')
+
         return targets
 
     def install(self, spec, prefix):