diff --git a/caravel/__init__.py b/caravel/__init__.py
index b09536a0b37b7..57888c9bdb26d 100644
--- a/caravel/__init__.py
+++ b/caravel/__init__.py
@@ -13,7 +13,9 @@
 from flask.ext.cache import Cache
 from flask.ext.migrate import Migrate
 
-VERSION = '0.8.8'
+from caravel import version
+
+VERSION = version.VERSION_STRING
 
 APP_DIR = os.path.dirname(__file__)
 CONFIG_MODULE = os.environ.get('CARAVEL_CONFIG', 'caravel.config')
diff --git a/caravel/version.py b/caravel/version.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..3913c568f8d1e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/caravel/version.py
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+VERSION_MAJOR = 0
+VERSION_MINOR = 8
+VERSION_BUILD = 8
+VERSION_INFO = (VERSION_MAJOR, VERSION_MINOR, VERSION_BUILD)
+VERSION_STRING = "%d.%d.%d" % VERSION_INFO
+
+__version__ = VERSION_INFO
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 95bb64bd68c7e..b1e7d01d9a83e 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -1,14 +1,15 @@
+import imp, os
 from setuptools import setup, find_packages
 
-VERSION = '0.8.8'
-
+version = imp.load_source(
+    'version', os.path.join('caravel', 'version.py'))
 
 setup(
     name='caravel',
     description=(
         "A interactive data visualization platform build on SqlAlchemy "
         "and druid.io"),
-    version=VERSION,
+    version=version.VERSION_STRING,
     packages=find_packages(),
     include_package_data=True,
     zip_safe=False,
@@ -41,5 +42,5 @@
     author_email='maximebeauchemin@gmail.com',
     url='https://github.com/airbnb/caravel',
     download_url=(
-        'https://github.com/airbnb/caravel/tarball/' + VERSION),
+        'https://github.com/airbnb/caravel/tarball/' + version.VERSION_STRING),
 )