diff --git a/Documentation/kbuild/kbuild.txt b/Documentation/kbuild/kbuild.txt
index 634c625da8ce..b146eb86e498 100644
--- a/Documentation/kbuild/kbuild.txt
+++ b/Documentation/kbuild/kbuild.txt
@@ -51,6 +51,14 @@ Specify the output directory when building the kernel.
 The output directory can also be specificed using "O=...".
 Setting "O=..." takes precedence over KBUILD_OUTPUT.
 
+KBUILD_DEBARCH
+--------------------------------------------------
+For the deb-pkg target, allows overriding the normal heuristics deployed by
+deb-pkg. Normally deb-pkg attempts to guess the right architecture based on
+the UTS_MACHINE variable, and on some architectures also the kernel config.
+The value of KBUILD_DEBARCH is assumed (not checked) to be a valid Debian
+architecture.
+
 ARCH
 --------------------------------------------------
 Set ARCH to the architecture to be built.
diff --git a/scripts/package/builddeb b/scripts/package/builddeb
index 5d6be3f5e7f7..ffe24194b763 100644
--- a/scripts/package/builddeb
+++ b/scripts/package/builddeb
@@ -54,6 +54,9 @@ create_package() {
 		echo "Please add support for $UTS_MACHINE to ${0} ..." >&2
 		echo "" >&2
 	esac
+	if [ -n "$KBUILD_DEBARCH" ] ; then
+		debarch="$KBUILD_DEBARCH"
+	fi
 	if [ -n "$debarch" ] ; then
 		forcearch="-DArchitecture=$debarch"
 	fi