diff --git a/DEPENDS.txt b/DEPENDS.txt
index b2858256..9c7302f1 100644
--- a/DEPENDS.txt
+++ b/DEPENDS.txt
@@ -2,11 +2,15 @@ Build Requirements
 ------------------
 * `Python >= 2.5 <http://python.org>`__
 * `Numpy >= 1.6 <http://numpy.scipy.org/>`__
-* `Cython >= 0.15 <http://www.cython.org/>`__
+* `Cython >= 0.17 <http://www.cython.org/>`__
 
 `Matplotlib >= 1.0 <http://matplotlib.sf.net>`__ is needed to generate the
 examples in the documentation.
 
+You can use pip to automatically install the base dependencies as follows::
+
+    $ pip install -r requirements.txt
+
 Runtime requirements
 --------------------
 * `SciPy >= 0.10 <http://scipy.org>`__
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..4a4aaa53
--- /dev/null
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+cython>=0.17
+matplotlib>=1.0
+numpy>=1.6
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 22db8e75..da76b819 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ VERSION             = '0.9dev'
 PYTHON_VERSION      = (2, 5)
 DEPENDENCIES        = {
                         'numpy': (1, 6),
-                        'Cython': (0, 15),
+                        'Cython': (0, 17),
                       }