diff --git a/src/uucore/Cargo.toml b/src/uucore/Cargo.toml
index aeab77705..1689c734e 100644
--- a/src/uucore/Cargo.toml
+++ b/src/uucore/Cargo.toml
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ authors = []
 [dependencies]
 libc = "*"
 winapi = "*"
+getopts = "*"
 data-encoding = "^1.1"
 
 [lib]
diff --git a/src/uucore/coreopts.rs b/src/uucore/coreopts.rs
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..fa2f31fc2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/uucore/coreopts.rs
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+extern crate getopts;
+use std::io::Write;
+
+pub struct CoreOptions {
+    pub options : getopts::Options,
+    longhelp : Option<String>
+}
+
+impl<'a> CoreOptions {
+    pub fn new() -> Self {
+        let mut ret = CoreOptions {
+            options : getopts::Options::new(),
+            longhelp : None
+        };
+        ret.options
+            .optflag("", "help", "print usage information")
+            .optflag("", "version", "print name and version number");
+        ret
+    }
+    pub fn optopt(&mut self, short_name: &str, long_name: &str, desc: &str, hint: &str) -> &mut CoreOptions {
+        self.options.optopt(short_name, long_name, desc, hint);
+        self
+    }
+    pub fn optflag(&mut self, short_name: &str, long_name: &str, desc: &str) -> &mut CoreOptions {
+        self.options.optflag(short_name, long_name, desc);
+        self
+    }
+    pub fn help<T: Into<String>>(&mut self, longhelp : T) -> &mut CoreOptions {
+        self.longhelp = Some(longhelp.into());
+        self
+    }
+    pub fn usage(&self, summary : &str) -> String {
+        self.options.usage(summary)
+    }
+    pub fn parse(&mut self, args : Vec<String>) -> getopts::Matches {
+        let matches = match self.options.parse(&args[1..]) {
+            Ok(m) => { Some(m) },
+            Err(f) => {
+                crash!(1, "{}", msg_invalid_input!(format!("{}", f)));
+            }
+        }.unwrap();
+        if matches.opt_present("help") {
+            exit!(match self.longhelp {
+                Some(ref lhelp) => { print!("{}", lhelp); 0}
+                None => 1
+            });
+        } else if matches.opt_present("version") {
+            print!("{}", msg_version!());
+            exit!(0);
+        }
+        matches
+    }
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/src/uucore/lib.rs b/src/uucore/lib.rs
index d61d93516..f3cd5bebc 100644
--- a/src/uucore/lib.rs
+++ b/src/uucore/lib.rs
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ pub mod fs;
 pub mod parse_time;
 pub mod utf8;
 pub mod encoding;
+pub mod coreopts;
 
 #[cfg(unix)] pub mod c_types;
 #[cfg(unix)] pub mod process;