diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index a77f8c8..f451588 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -90,6 +90,7 @@
 OPTION(GFLAGS "Enable Google Flags." ON)
 OPTION(SUITESPARSE "Enable SuiteSparse." ON)
 OPTION(CXSPARSE "Enable CXSparse." ON)
+OPTION(LAPACK "Enable use of LAPACK." ON)
 # Template specializations for the Schur complement based solvers. If
 # compile time, binary size or compiler performance is an issue, you
 # may consider disabling this.
@@ -143,33 +144,46 @@
 ENDIF (NOT EXISTS ${EIGEN_INCLUDE})
 MARK_AS_ADVANCED(EIGEN_INCLUDE)
 
-# BLAS & LAPACK.
-SET(BLAS_AND_LAPACK_FOUND TRUE)
-IF ((NOT DEFINED LAPACK) OR (DEFINED LAPACK AND LAPACK))
+# LAPACK (& BLAS).
+IF (LAPACK)
   FIND_PACKAGE(LAPACK QUIET)
   IF (LAPACK_FOUND)
     MESSAGE("-- Found LAPACK library: ${LAPACK_LIBRARIES}")
   ELSE (LAPACK_FOUND)
-    MESSAGE("-- Did not find LAPACK library")
-    SET(BLAS_AND_LAPACK_FOUND FALSE)
+    MESSAGE("-- Did not find LAPACK library, disabling LAPACK support.")
   ENDIF (LAPACK_FOUND)
 
   FIND_PACKAGE(BLAS QUIET)
   IF (BLAS_FOUND)
     MESSAGE("-- Found BLAS library: ${BLAS_LIBRARIES}")
   ELSE (BLAS_FOUND)
-    MESSAGE("-- Did not find BLAS library")
-    SET(BLAS_AND_BLAS_FOUND FALSE)
+    MESSAGE("-- Did not find BLAS library, disabling LAPACK support.")
   ENDIF (BLAS_FOUND)
-ELSE ((NOT DEFINED LAPACK) OR (DEFINED LAPACK AND LAPACK))
-  SET(BLAS_AND_LAPACK_FOUND FALSE)
-ENDIF ((NOT DEFINED LAPACK) OR (DEFINED LAPACK AND LAPACK))
 
-IF (NOT BLAS_AND_LAPACK_FOUND)
+  IF (NOT (LAPACK_FOUND AND BLAS_FOUND))
+    # Retain the help string associated with the LAPACK option
+    # when updating it to disable use of LAPACK.
+    GET_PROPERTY(HELP_STRING CACHE LAPACK PROPERTY HELPSTRING)
+    SET(LAPACK OFF CACHE BOOL "${HELP_STRING}" FORCE)
+    ADD_DEFINITIONS(-DCERES_NO_LAPACK)
+  ENDIF (NOT (LAPACK_FOUND AND BLAS_FOUND))
+ELSE (LAPACK)
+  MESSAGE("-- Building without LAPACK.")
   ADD_DEFINITIONS(-DCERES_NO_LAPACK)
-ENDIF (NOT BLAS_AND_LAPACK_FOUND)
+ENDIF (LAPACK)
 
 # SuiteSparse.
+IF (SUITESPARSE AND NOT LAPACK)
+  # If user has disabled LAPACK, but left SUITESPARSE ON, turn it OFF,
+  # LAPACK controls whether Ceres will be linked, directly or indirectly
+  # via SuiteSparse to LAPACK.
+  MESSAGE("-- Disabling SuiteSparse as use of LAPACK has been disabled, "
+    "turn ON LAPACK to enable (optional) building with SuiteSparse.")
+  # Retain the help string associated with the SUITESPARSE option
+  # when updating it to disable use of SuiteSparse.
+  GET_PROPERTY(HELP_STRING CACHE SUITESPARSE PROPERTY HELPSTRING)
+  SET(SUITESPARSE OFF CACHE BOOL "${HELP_STRING}" FORCE)
+ENDIF (SUITESPARSE AND NOT LAPACK)
 IF (SUITESPARSE)
   # By default, if SuiteSparse and all dependencies are found, Ceres is
   # built with SuiteSparse support.
@@ -185,7 +199,11 @@
         "library on Ubuntu using a system package install of SuiteSparse "
         "3.4.0. This package is broken and does not support the "
         "construction of shared libraries (you can still build Ceres as "
-        "a static library), see: http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~sagarwal"
+        "a static library).  If you wish to build a shared version of Ceres "
+        "you should uninstall the system install of SuiteSparse "
+        "(libsuitesparse-dev) and perform a source install of SuiteSparse "
+        "(we recommend that you use the latest version), "
+        "see: http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~sagarwal"
         "/ceres-solver/dev/building.html for more information.")
     ENDIF (BUILD_SHARED_LIBS AND
       SUITESPARSE_IS_BROKEN_SHARED_LINKING_UBUNTU_SYSTEM_VERSION)
diff --git a/docs/source/building.rst b/docs/source/building.rst
index 91fdd8a..22dde2c 100644
--- a/docs/source/building.rst
+++ b/docs/source/building.rst
@@ -28,14 +28,17 @@
 3. `google-glog <http://code.google.com/p/google-glog>`_ is
 used for error checking and logging. Ceres needs glog version 0.3.1 or
 later. Version 0.3 (which ships with Fedora 16) has a namespace bug
-which prevents Ceres from building.
+which prevents Ceres from building. Ceres contains a stripped-down,
+minimal version of ``glog`` called ``miniglog``, which can be enabled
+with the ``MINIGLOG`` build option. If enabled, it replaces the
+requirement for ``glog``. However, in general it is recommended that
+you use the full ``glog``.
 
 4. `gflags <http://code.google.com/p/gflags>`_ is a library for
 processing command line flags. It is used by some of the examples and
 tests. While it is not strictly necessary to build the library, we
 strongly recommend building the library with gflags.
 
-
 5. `SuiteSparse
 <http://www.cise.ufl.edu/research/sparse/SuiteSparse/>`_ is used for
 sparse matrix analysis, ordering and factorization. In particular
@@ -47,15 +50,15 @@
 no dependencies on ``LAPACK`` and ``BLAS``. This makes for a simpler
 build process and a smaller binary.  The simplicity comes at a cost --
 for all but the most trivial matrices, ``SuiteSparse`` is
-significantly faster than ``CXSparse``.
+significantly faster than ``CXSparse``. This is an optional dependency.
 
 7. `BLAS <http://www.netlib.org/blas/>`_ and `LAPACK
 <http://www.netlib.org/lapack/>`_ routines are needed by
-SuiteSparse. We recommend `ATLAS
-<http://math-atlas.sourceforge.net/>`_, which includes BLAS and LAPACK
-routines. It is also possible to use `OpenBLAS
-<https://github.com/xianyi/OpenBLAS>`_ . However, one needs to be
-careful to `turn off the threading
+SuiteSparse, and optionally used by Ceres directly for some operations.
+We recommend `ATLAS <http://math-atlas.sourceforge.net/>`_,
+which includes BLAS and LAPACK routines. It is also possible to use
+`OpenBLAS <https://github.com/xianyi/OpenBLAS>`_ . However, one needs
+to be careful to `turn off the threading
 <https://github.com/xianyi/OpenBLAS/wiki/faq#wiki-multi-threaded>`_
 inside ``OpenBLAS`` as it conflicts with use of threads in Ceres.
 
@@ -306,22 +309,29 @@
 command line.  In general, you should only modify these options from
 their defaults if you know what you are doing.
 
+#. ``LAPACK [Default: ON]``: By default Ceres will use ``LAPACK``
+   (& ``BLAS``) if they are found.  Turn this ``OFF`` to build Ceres without
+   ``LAPACK``. Turning this ``OFF`` also disables ``SUITESPARSE`` as it
+   depends on ``LAPACK``.
+
 #. ``SUITESPARSE [Default: ON]``: By default, Ceres will link to
-   ``SuiteSparse`` if all its dependencies are present. Turn this ``OFF``
-   to build Ceres without ``SuiteSparse``. This will also disable
-   dependency checking for ``LAPACK`` and ``BLAS``. This will reduce
-   Ceres' dependencies down to ``Eigen``, ``gflags`` and
-   ``google-glog``.
+   ``SuiteSparse`` if it and all of its dependencies are present. Turn this ``OFF``
+   to build Ceres without ``SuiteSparse``. Note that ``LAPACK`` must be
+   ``ON`` in order to build with ``SuiteSparse``.
 
 #. ``CXSPARSE [Default: ON]``: By default, Ceres will link to ``CXSparse`` if
    all its dependencies are present. Turn this ``OFF`` to build Ceres
-   without ``CXSparse``. This will reduce Ceres' dependencies down to
-   ``Eigen``, ``gflags`` and ``google-glog``.
+   without ``CXSparse``.
 
 #. ``GFLAGS [Default: ON]``: Turn this ``OFF`` to build Ceres without
    ``gflags``. This will also prevent some of the example code from
    building.
 
+#. ``MINIGLOG [Default: OFF]``: Ceres includes a stripped-down, minimal
+   implementation of ``glog`` which can optionally be used as a substitute for
+   ``glog``, thus removing ``glog`` as a required dependency. Turn this ``ON`` to
+   use this minimal ``glog`` implementation.
+
 #. ``SCHUR_SPECIALIZATIONS [Default: ON]``: If you are concerned about binary
    size/compilation time over some small (10-20%) performance gains in
    the ``SPARSE_SCHUR`` solver, you can disable some of the template
diff --git a/internal/ceres/CMakeLists.txt b/internal/ceres/CMakeLists.txt
index 30ff6f9..31d737d 100644
--- a/internal/ceres/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/internal/ceres/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -155,10 +155,10 @@
   LIST(APPEND CERES_LIBRARY_DEPENDENCIES ${CXSPARSE_LIB})
 ENDIF (CXSPARSE AND CXSPARSE_FOUND)
 
-IF (BLAS_AND_LAPACK_FOUND)
+IF (BLAS_FOUND AND LAPACK_FOUND)
   LIST(APPEND CERES_LIBRARY_DEPENDENCIES ${LAPACK_LIBRARIES})
   LIST(APPEND CERES_LIBRARY_DEPENDENCIES ${BLAS_LIBRARIES})
-ENDIF (BLAS_AND_LAPACK_FOUND)
+ENDIF (BLAS_FOUND AND LAPACK_FOUND)
 
 IF (OPENMP_FOUND)
   IF (NOT MSVC)