diff --git a/smart_open/smart_open_lib.py b/smart_open/smart_open_lib.py
index 35c71cd5..64538e5e 100644
--- a/smart_open/smart_open_lib.py
+++ b/smart_open/smart_open_lib.py
@@ -51,6 +51,7 @@
 S3_MIN_PART_SIZE = 50 * 1024**2  # minimum part size for S3 multipart uploads
 WEBHDFS_MIN_PART_SIZE = 50 * 1024**2  # minimum part size for HDFS multipart uploads
 
+_SSH={} # place to put ssh connections, if necessary.
 
 def smart_open(uri, mode="rb", **kw):
     """
@@ -117,6 +118,24 @@ def smart_open(uri, mode="rb", **kw):
             # local files -- both read & write supported
             # compression, if any, is determined by the filename extension (.gz, .bz2)
             return file_smart_open(parsed_uri.uri_path, mode)
+
+        elif parsed_uri.scheme in ("ssh", "scp", "sftp"):
+            def SSH(hostname, username):
+                import paramiko
+                ssh = _SSH.get( (hostname,username) )
+                if ssh is None:
+                    ssh = _SSH[ (hostname,username) ] = paramiko.client.SSHClient()
+                    ssh.load_system_host_keys()
+                    ssh.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())
+                    ssh.connect(hostname, 22, username)
+                    pass
+                return ssh
+            def SFTP(): return SSH(parsed_uri.host,
+                                   parsed_uri.user).get_transport().open_sftp_client()
+            def sopen(filename, mode): return SFTP().open(filename, mode)
+
+            return sopen(parsed_uri.uri_path[1:], mode)
+
         elif parsed_uri.scheme in ("s3", "s3n"):
             s3_connection = boto.connect_s3(aws_access_key_id=parsed_uri.access_id, aws_secret_access_key=parsed_uri.access_secret)
             bucket = s3_connection.get_bucket(parsed_uri.bucket_id)
@@ -177,6 +196,8 @@ class ParseUri(object):
       * ./local/path/file.gz
       * file:///home/user/file
       * file:///home/user/file.bz2
+      * [ssh|scp|sftp]://username@host//path/file
+      * [ssh|scp|sftp]://username@host/path/file
 
     """
     def __init__(self, uri, default_scheme="file"):
@@ -198,6 +219,9 @@ def __init__(self, uri, default_scheme="file"):
 
             if not self.uri_path:
                 raise RuntimeError("invalid HDFS URI: %s" % uri)
+        elif self.scheme in ("ssh", "scp", "sftp"):
+            self.user, self.host = parsed_uri.netloc.split('@')
+            self.uri_path = parsed_uri.path
         elif self.scheme == "webhdfs":
             self.uri_path = parsed_uri.netloc + "/webhdfs/v1" + parsed_uri.path