diff --git a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/argobots/package.py b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/argobots/package.py
index 7bb48894c42d12fec1b41d8f645cac7187cc70f1..11c8febea6a7f547a8c52bdc7661496375909f64 100644
--- a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/argobots/package.py
+++ b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/argobots/package.py
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ class Argobots(AutotoolsPackage):
     version("1.0a1", sha256="bef93e06026ddeba8809474923176803e64d08e1425672cd7c5b424c797d5d9d")
 
     variant("valgrind", default=False, description="Enable Valgrind")
+    variant("debug", default=False, description="Compiled with debugging symbols")
 
     depends_on("m4", type=("build"), when="@master")
     depends_on("autoconf", type=("build"), when="@master")
@@ -41,4 +42,9 @@ def configure_args(self):
         else:
             args.append('--disable-valgrind')
 
+        if '+debug' in self.spec:
+            args.append('--enable-debug=yes')
+        else:
+            args.append('--disable-debug')
+
         return args