diff --git a/common/djangoapps/student/management/commands/set_staff.py b/common/djangoapps/student/management/commands/set_staff.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..5e7df1f585
--- /dev/null
+++ b/common/djangoapps/student/management/commands/set_staff.py
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+from django.contrib.auth.models import User
+from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand, CommandError
+import re
+
+
+class Command(BaseCommand):
+
+    args = '<user/email user/email ...>'
+    help = """
+    This command will set isstaff to true for one or more users.
+    Lookup by username or email address, assumes usernames
+    do not look like email addresses.
+    """
+
+    def handle(self, *args, **kwargs):
+
+        if len(args) < 1:
+            print Command.help
+            return
+
+        for user in args:
+
+            if re.match('[^@]+@[^@]+\.[^@]+', user):
+                try:
+                    v = User.objects.get(email=user)
+                except:
+                    raise CommandError("User {0} does not exist".format(
+                        user))
+            else:
+                try:
+                    v = User.objects.get(username=user)
+                except:
+                    raise CommandError("User {0} does not exist".format(
+                        user))
+
+            v.is_staff = True
+            v.save()
diff --git a/rakefile b/rakefile
index f5e26a208f..91c3a6dd2a 100644
--- a/rakefile
+++ b/rakefile
@@ -171,6 +171,12 @@ task "django-admin", [:action, :system, :env, :options] => [:predjango] do |t, a
     sh(django_admin(args.system, args.env, args.action, args.options))
 end
 
+desc "Set the staff bit for a user"
+task :set_staff, [:user, :system, :env] do |t, args|
+    args.with_defaults(:env => 'dev', :system => 'lms', :options => '')
+    sh(django_admin(args.system, args.env, 'set_staff', args.user))
+end
+
 task :package do
     FileUtils.mkdir_p(BUILD_DIR)