diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index b12b5e2b464f0ac11ad92337f709b33cc91e18df..561f3b928177e20c327817b7de12565dac7a4b55 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -44,7 +44,10 @@ Installing
 * mono-devel and mono-mcs (>= 3.0.6) (for .NET bindings)
 * [nunit](http://www.nunit.org/) (for testing .NET bindings)
 
-To build, type `scons`. To run the built-in test suite, type `scons test`. For a debug build, add `--variant=debug`.
+To build, type `scons`.
+To run the built-in test suite, type `scons test`.
+To avoid the test dependencies, add `--no-tests`.
+For a debug build, add `--variant=debug`.
 
 To build bindings, pass a "bindings" argument to scons, e.g. `scons bindings=python`. `scons bindings=python test` will build Python bindings and run tests for both C and Python. `--variant=debug` is valid here too. You can build more than one set of bindings at a time; just separate them with commas, e.g. `scons bindings=python,perl`.
 
diff --git a/SConstruct b/SConstruct
index 0aa5670f6c3020afbea5290b16ce2b82e0aac5b2..96c5d0478da24fcdaa8545642911c3848152bd68 100644
--- a/SConstruct
+++ b/SConstruct
@@ -103,11 +103,11 @@ AddOption('--in-place',
           action='store_true',
           help='Build in-place, rather than in the build/<variant> tree')
 
-AddOption('--tests',
+AddOption('--no-tests',
           dest='with_tests',
           default=env['PLATFORM'] != 'win32',
-          action='store_true',
-          help='Build tests')
+          action='store_false',
+          help='Do not build tests')
 
 env['CC'] = os.getenv('CC') or env['CC']
 env['CXX'] = os.getenv('CXX') or env['CXX']