diff --git a/src/Httpful/Request.php b/src/Httpful/Request.php
index b9b03e6..a722d39 100644
--- a/src/Httpful/Request.php
+++ b/src/Httpful/Request.php
@@ -126,6 +126,14 @@ public function hasTimeout()
         return isset($this->timeout);
     }
 
+    /**
+     * @return bool does the request have a connection timeout?
+     */
+    public function hasConnectionTimeout()
+    {
+        return isset($this->connection_timeout);
+    }
+
     /**
      * @return bool has the internal curl request been initialized?
      */
@@ -167,6 +175,23 @@ public function timeoutIn($seconds)
         return $this->timeout($seconds);
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Specify a HTTP connection timeout
+     * @param float|int $timeout seconds to timeout the HTTP connection
+     * @return Request
+     * @throws Exception
+     */
+    public function setConnectionTimeout($connection_timeout)
+    {
+        if (!preg_match('/^\d+(\.\d+)?/', $connection_timeout)) {
+            throw new \InvalidArgumentException(
+                "Invalid connection timeout provided: " . var_export($connection_timeout, true)
+            );
+        }
+        $this->connection_timeout = $connection_timeout;
+        return $this;
+    }
+
     /**
      * If the response is a 301 or 302 redirect, automatically
      * send off another request to that location
@@ -875,6 +900,14 @@ public function _curlPrep()
             }
         }
 
+        if ($this->hasConnectionTimeout()) {
+            if (defined('CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT_MS')) {
+                curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT_MS, $this->connection_timeout * 1000);
+            } else {
+                curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT_MS, $this->connection_timeout);
+            }
+        }
+
         if ($this->follow_redirects) {
             curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);
             curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS, $this->max_redirects);