diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 99bbb6bd5b..3941098473 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ else
 ASCII2MAN = @echo "ERROR: rst2man from docutils command is not installed but is required to build $(MANPAGES)" && exit 1
 endif
 
-PYTHON=python
+PYTHON?=python
 GENERATE_CLI = hacking/build-ansible.py generate-man
 
 SITELIB = $(shell $(PYTHON) -c "from distutils.sysconfig import get_python_lib; print get_python_lib()")