diff --git a/tools/unicode_tests.py b/tools/unicode_tests.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d308f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/unicode_tests.py
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+# coding: utf-8
+"""These tests have to be run separately from the main test suite (iptest),
+because that sets the default encoding to utf-8, and it cannot be changed after
+the interpreter is up and running. The default encoding in a Python 2.x 
+environment is ASCII."""
+import unittest, sys
+
+from IPython.core import compilerop
+
+assert sys.getdefaultencoding() == "ascii"
+
+class CompileropTest(unittest.TestCase):
+    def test_accept_unicode(self):
+        cp = compilerop.CachingCompiler()
+        cp(u"t = 'žćčšđ'", "single")
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    unittest.main()