diff --git a/maintainers/docs/todo.txt b/maintainers/docs/todo.txt
index 7c4a0150942a..a99c58d2c79d 100644
--- a/maintainers/docs/todo.txt
+++ b/maintainers/docs/todo.txt
@@ -11,3 +11,7 @@
 
 * In libxml2: python2.3 -> python2.4 (or even better, make this
   generic; also in bittorrent).
+
+* Packages that need ncurses almost always need special flags.  They
+  expect "ncurses.h" rather than "ncurses/ncurses.h" to be in the
+  include path.  Fix this.
diff --git a/pkgs/os-specific/linux/alsa/utils/builder.sh b/pkgs/os-specific/linux/alsa/utils/builder.sh
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..18e576046819
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/os-specific/linux/alsa/utils/builder.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+source $stdenv/setup
+
+export NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE="-I$ncurses/include/ncurses -I$ncurses/include $NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE"
+
+genericBuild
diff --git a/pkgs/os-specific/linux/alsa/utils/default.nix b/pkgs/os-specific/linux/alsa/utils/default.nix
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..69df23d3ea98
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/os-specific/linux/alsa/utils/default.nix
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+{stdenv, fetchurl, alsaLib, ncurses, gettext}:
+
+stdenv.mkDerivation {
+  name = "alsa-utils-1.0.9a";
+  builder = ./builder.sh;
+  src = fetchurl {
+    url = ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/utils/alsa-utils-1.0.9a.tar.bz2;
+    md5 = "d4b77e9fe0311772293e402fdd634ad2";
+  };
+  buildInputs = [alsaLib ncurses gettext];
+  inherit ncurses;
+}
diff --git a/pkgs/system/all-packages-generic.nix b/pkgs/system/all-packages-generic.nix
index 4cd49c2fcec3..0790443c1aa1 100644
--- a/pkgs/system/all-packages-generic.nix
+++ b/pkgs/system/all-packages-generic.nix
@@ -1145,6 +1145,10 @@ rec {
     inherit fetchurl stdenv;
   };
 
+  alsaUtils = (import ../os-specific/linux/alsa/utils) {
+    inherit fetchurl stdenv alsaLib ncurses gettext;
+  };
+
   utillinux = (import ../os-specific/linux/util-linux) {
     inherit fetchurl stdenv;
   };