diff --git a/sbin/spark-config.sh b/sbin/spark-config.sh
index 2718d6cba1c9a2139c3d400a9589efb3e9731047..1d154e62ed5b63e67ce3e48d0988760b0007657c 100755
--- a/sbin/spark-config.sh
+++ b/sbin/spark-config.sh
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ this="$config_bin/$script"
 
 export SPARK_PREFIX="`dirname "$this"`"/..
 export SPARK_HOME="${SPARK_PREFIX}"
-export SPARK_CONF_DIR="$SPARK_HOME/conf"
+export SPARK_CONF_DIR="${SPARK_CONF_DIR:-"$SPARK_HOME/conf"}"
 # Add the PySpark classes to the PYTHONPATH:
 export PYTHONPATH="$SPARK_HOME/python:$PYTHONPATH"
 export PYTHONPATH="$SPARK_HOME/python/lib/py4j-0.8.2.1-src.zip:$PYTHONPATH"