diff --git a/pkgs/development/libraries/libcaca/default.nix b/pkgs/development/libraries/libcaca/default.nix
index 04e1af2326b..8949ea8e390 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/libraries/libcaca/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/libraries/libcaca/default.nix
@@ -1,4 +1,6 @@
-{ stdenv, fetchurl, ncurses, zlib, imlib2, pkgconfig, libX11, libXext }:
+{ stdenv, fetchurl, ncurses, zlib, pkgconfig, imlib2
+, x11Support ? !stdenv.isDarwin, libX11, libXext
+}:
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
   name = "libcaca-0.99.beta19";
@@ -13,8 +15,16 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
 
   outputs = [ "bin" "dev" "out" "man" ];
 
-  propagatedBuildInputs = [ ncurses zlib imlib2 pkgconfig libX11 ]
-   ++ stdenv.lib.optional stdenv.isDarwin libXext;
+  configureFlags = [
+    (if x11Support then "--enable-x11" else "--disable-x11")
+    ];
+
+  NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE = stdenv.lib.optional (!x11Support) "-DX_DISPLAY_MISSING";
+
+  enableParallelBuilding = true;
+
+  propagatedBuildInputs = [ ncurses zlib pkgconfig (imlib2.override { inherit x11Support; }) ]
+    ++ stdenv.lib.optionals x11Support [ libX11 libXext];
 
   postInstall = ''
     mkdir -p $dev/bin