diff --git a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/fltk/package.py b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/fltk/package.py
index 2c1f93578d..99509b6308 100644
--- a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/fltk/package.py
+++ b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/fltk/package.py
@@ -38,6 +38,12 @@ class Fltk(Package):
     variant('shared', default=True,
             description='Enables the build of shared libraries')
 
+    variant('gl', default=True,
+            description='Enables opengl support')
+
+    # variant dependencies
+    depends_on('gl', when='+gl')
+
     def install(self, spec, prefix):
         options = ['--prefix=%s' % prefix,
                    '--enable-localjpeg',
@@ -47,6 +53,9 @@ def install(self, spec, prefix):
         if '+shared' in spec:
             options.append('--enable-shared')
 
+        if '~gl' in spec:
+            options.append('--disable-gl')
+
         # FLTK needs to be built in-source
         configure(*options)
         make()