diff --git a/skimage/io/_io.py b/skimage/io/_io.py
index eea7e509..f8f395bd 100644
--- a/skimage/io/_io.py
+++ b/skimage/io/_io.py
@@ -1,6 +1,10 @@
 __all__ = ['Image', 'imread', 'imread_collection', 'imsave', 'imshow', 'show',
            'push', 'pop']
 
+import os
+import re
+import urllib2
+import tempfile
 from io import BytesIO
 
 import numpy as np
@@ -12,6 +16,14 @@ from skimage.color import rgb2grey
 # Shared image queue
 _image_stack = []
 
+URL_REGEX = re.compile(r'http://|https://|ftp://|file://|file:\\')
+
+
+def is_url(filename):
+    """Return True if string is an http or ftp path."""
+    return (isinstance(filename, basestring) and
+            URL_REGEX.match(filename) is not None)
+
 
 class Image(np.ndarray):
     """Class representing Image data.
@@ -88,7 +100,7 @@ def imread(fname, as_grey=False, plugin=None, flatten=None,
     Parameters
     ----------
     fname : string
-        Image file name, e.g. ``test.jpg``.
+        Image file name, e.g. ``test.jpg`` or URL.
     as_grey : bool
         If True, convert color images to grey-scale (32-bit floats).
         Images that are already in grey-scale format are not converted.
@@ -117,7 +129,14 @@ def imread(fname, as_grey=False, plugin=None, flatten=None,
     if flatten is not None:
         as_grey = flatten
 
-    img = call_plugin('imread', fname, plugin=plugin, **plugin_args)
+    if is_url(fname):
+        with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(delete=False) as f:
+            u = urllib2.urlopen(fname)
+            f.write(u.read())
+        img = call_plugin('imread', f.name, plugin=plugin, **plugin_args)
+        os.remove(f.name)
+    else:
+        img = call_plugin('imread', fname, plugin=plugin, **plugin_args)
 
     if as_grey and getattr(img, 'ndim', 0) >= 3:
         img = rgb2grey(img)
diff --git a/skimage/io/tests/test_io.py b/skimage/io/tests/test_io.py
index 72f8496a..484784ee 100644
--- a/skimage/io/tests/test_io.py
+++ b/skimage/io/tests/test_io.py
@@ -1,7 +1,10 @@
+import os
+
 from numpy.testing import *
 import numpy as np
 
 import skimage.io as io
+from skimage import data_dir
 
 
 def test_stack_basic():
@@ -15,5 +18,15 @@ def test_stack_basic():
 def test_stack_non_array():
     io.push([[1, 2, 3]])
 
+
+def test_imread_url():
+    # tweak data path so that file URI works on both unix and windows.
+    data_path = data_dir.lstrip(os.path.sep)
+    data_path = data_path.replace(os.path.sep, '/')
+    image_url = 'file:///{0}/camera.png'.format(data_path)
+    image = io.imread(image_url)
+    assert image.shape == (512, 512)
+
+
 if __name__ == "__main__":
     run_module_suite()