diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index feb8c2903..a7f534079 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -12,8 +12,15 @@ DOCKER_IMAGE := containerd-dev$(if $(GIT_BRANCH),:$(GIT_BRANCH))
 DOCKER_RUN := docker run --rm -i $(DOCKER_FLAGS) "$(DOCKER_IMAGE)"
 
 export GO15VENDOREXPERIMENT:=1
+GOLANG_VERSION:=$(shell go version | cut -d ' ' -f3 | cut -c 3-)
 
-all: client daemon shim
+
+all: check_version client daemon shim
+
+check_version:
+ifneq ($(shell /bin/echo -e "1.5\n${GOLANG_VERSION}" | sort -V | head -n1),1.5)
+	$(error "Golang 1.5+ required to build containerd. Current version: ${GOLANG_VERSION}")
+endif
 
 bin:
 	mkdir -p bin/
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 78e4312c4..9a047458f 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -19,10 +19,10 @@ For more documentation on various subjects refer to the `/docs` directory in thi
 
 ## Building
 
-You will need to make sure that you have Go installed on your system and the containerd repository is cloned
+You will need to make sure that you have Go 1.5+ installed on your system and the containerd repository is cloned
 in your `$GOPATH`.  You will also need to make sure that you have all the dependencies cloned as well.
 Currently, contributing to containerd is not for the first time devs as many dependencies are not vendored and 
-work is being completed at a high rate.  
+work is being completed at a high rate.
 
 After that just run `make` and the binaries for the daemon and client will be localed in the `bin/` directory.