diff --git a/lms/envs/aws.py b/lms/envs/aws.py
index b6e47d6ab1..a1146c6c84 100644
--- a/lms/envs/aws.py
+++ b/lms/envs/aws.py
@@ -108,8 +108,12 @@ STATIC_ROOT_BASE = ENV_TOKENS.get('STATIC_ROOT_BASE', None)
 if STATIC_ROOT_BASE:
     STATIC_ROOT = path(STATIC_ROOT_BASE)
 
-# STATIC_URL specifies the url to use for static files
-STATIC_URL = ENV_TOKENS.get('STATIC_URL', STATIC_URL)
+
+# STATIC_URL_BASE specifies the base url to use for static files
+STATIC_URL_BASE = ENV_TOKENS.get('STATIC_URL_BASE', None)
+if STATIC_URL_BASE:
+    # collectstatic will fail if STATIC_URL is a unicode string
+    STATIC_URL = STATIC_URL_BASE.encode('ascii', 'ignore') + "/"
 
 PLATFORM_NAME = ENV_TOKENS.get('PLATFORM_NAME', PLATFORM_NAME)
 # For displaying on the receipt. At Stanford PLATFORM_NAME != MERCHANT_NAME, but PLATFORM_NAME is a fine default