diff --git a/scrapy/commands/runspider.py b/scrapy/commands/runspider.py
index e9804e061..fe7142a57 100644
--- a/scrapy/commands/runspider.py
+++ b/scrapy/commands/runspider.py
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ import os
 from scrapy.utils.spider import iter_spider_classes
 from scrapy.command import ScrapyCommand
 from scrapy.exceptions import UsageError
+from scrapy.utils.conf import arglist_to_dict
 
 def _import_file(filepath):
     abspath = os.path.abspath(filepath)
@@ -33,8 +34,17 @@ class Command(ScrapyCommand):
     def long_desc(self):
         return "Run the spider defined in the given file"
 
+    def add_options(self, parser):
+        ScrapyCommand.add_options(self, parser)
+        parser.add_option("-a", dest="spargs", action="append", default=[], metavar="NAME=VALUE", \
+            help="set spider argument (may be repeated)")
+
     def process_options(self, args, opts):
         ScrapyCommand.process_options(self, args, opts)
+        try:
+            opts.spargs = arglist_to_dict(opts.spargs)
+        except ValueError:
+            raise UsageError("Invalid -a value, use -a NAME=VALUE", print_help=False)
 
     def run(self, args, opts):
         if len(args) != 1:
@@ -49,7 +59,7 @@ class Command(ScrapyCommand):
         spclasses = list(iter_spider_classes(module))
         if not spclasses:
             raise UsageError("No spider found in file: %s\n" % filename)
-        spider = spclasses.pop()()
+        spider = spclasses.pop()(**opts.spargs)
         # schedule spider and start engine
         self.crawler.queue.append_spider(spider)
         self.crawler.start()