diff --git a/pelican/rstdirectives.py b/pelican/rstdirectives.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..4849c9c2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pelican/rstdirectives.py
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
+from docutils import nodes
+from docutils.parsers.rst import directives, Directive
+from pygments.formatters import HtmlFormatter
+from pygments import highlight
+from pygments.lexers import get_lexer_by_name, TextLexer
+
+INLINESTYLES = False
+DEFAULT = HtmlFormatter(noclasses=INLINESTYLES)
+VARIANTS = {
+    'linenos': HtmlFormatter(noclasses=INLINESTYLES, linenos=True),
+}
+
+
+class Pygments(Directive):
+    """ Source code syntax hightlighting.
+    """
+    required_arguments = 1
+    optional_arguments = 0
+    final_argument_whitespace = True
+    option_spec = dict([(key, directives.flag) for key in VARIANTS])
+    has_content = True
+
+    def run(self):
+        self.assert_has_content()
+        try:
+            lexer = get_lexer_by_name(self.arguments[0])
+        except ValueError:
+            # no lexer found - use the text one instead of an exception
+            lexer = TextLexer()
+        # take an arbitrary option if more than one is given
+        formatter = self.options and VARIANTS[self.options.keys()[0]] \
+                    or DEFAULT
+        parsed = highlight(u'\n'.join(self.content), lexer, formatter)
+        return [nodes.raw('', parsed, format='html')]
+
+directives.register_directive('code-block', Pygments)