diff --git a/pkgs/shells/xonsh/default.nix b/pkgs/shells/xonsh/default.nix
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..3849c96ec13
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/shells/xonsh/default.nix
@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+{stdenv, fetchurl, python3Packages}:
+
+python3Packages.buildPythonPackage rec {
+  name = "xonsh-${version}";
+  version = "0.1.3";
+
+  # The logo xonsh prints during build contains unicode characters, and this
+  # fails because locales have not been set up in the build environment.
+  # We can fix this on Linux by setting:
+  #    export LOCALE_ARCHIVE=${pkgs.glibcLocales}/lib/locale/locale-archive
+  # but this would not be a cross platform solution, so it's simpler to just
+  # patch the setup.py script to not print the logo during build.
+  prePatch = ''
+    substituteInPlace setup.py --replace "print(logo)" ""
+  '';
+
+  propagatedBuildInputs = [ python3Packages.ply ];
+
+  src = fetchurl {
+    url = "https://github.com/scopatz/xonsh/archive/${version}.zip";
+    sha256 = "0p2d7p892w77ii8yy51vpw7jlz2y53k8g61m7l8bar3hr3qrl306";
+  };
+
+  meta = with stdenv.lib; {
+    description = "A Python-ish, BASHwards-compatible shell";
+    homepage = "http://xonsh.org";
+    license = licenses.bsd3;
+    maintainers = [ maintainers.spwhitt ];
+    platforms = platforms.all;
+  };
+}
diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
index db1d42c1614..80c970cf9f5 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
@@ -3239,6 +3239,8 @@ let
 
   rush = callPackage ../shells/rush { };
 
+  xonsh = callPackage ../shells/xonsh { };
+
   zsh = callPackage ../shells/zsh { };