diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 97d8cedf..65de456e 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ before_install:
 install:
   - pip install -r requirements.txt -r requirements-test.txt --use-mirrors
   - if [[ $USE_OPTIONAL == "true" ]]; then pip install -r requirements-optional.txt --use-mirrors; fi
+  - if [[ $TRAVIS_PYTHON_VERSION == "2.6" && $USE_OPTIONAL == "true" ]]; then pip install -r requirements-optional-2.6.txt --use-mirrors; fi
   - if [[ $TRAVIS_PYTHON_VERSION != "pypy" && $USE_OPTIONAL == "true" ]]; then pip install -r requirements-optional-cpython.txt --use-mirrors; fi
   - if [[ $FLAKE == "true" ]]; then pip install --use-mirrors flake8; fi
 
diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index f38b9426..f75a9fd5 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -34,6 +34,10 @@ Optionally:
   be determined; ``chardet``, from which it was forked, can also be used
   on Python 2.
 
+- ``ordereddict`` can be used under Python 2.6
+  (``collections.OrderedDict`` is used instead on later versions) to
+  serialize attributes in alphabetical order.
+
 
 Installation
 ------------
@@ -78,7 +82,9 @@ release tarballs this is unneeded)::
   $ git submodule update
 
 And then they can be run, with ``nose`` installed, using the
-``nosetests`` command in the root directory. All should pass.
+``nosetests`` command in the root directory. Note that ``ordereddict``
+is required for the serializer tests under Python 2.6. All should
+pass.
 
 If you have all compatible Python implementations available on your
 system, you can run tests on all of them by using tox::
diff --git a/html5lib/filters/alphabeticalattributes.py b/html5lib/filters/alphabeticalattributes.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..fed6996c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/html5lib/filters/alphabeticalattributes.py
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+from __future__ import absolute_import, division, unicode_literals
+
+from . import _base
+
+try:
+    from collections import OrderedDict
+except ImportError:
+    from ordereddict import OrderedDict
+
+
+class Filter(_base.Filter):
+    def __iter__(self):
+        for token in _base.Filter.__iter__(self):
+            if token["type"] in ("StartTag", "EmptyTag"):
+                attrs = OrderedDict()
+                for name, value in sorted(token["data"].items(),
+                                          key=lambda x: x[0]):
+                    attrs[name] = value
+                token["data"] = attrs
+            yield token
diff --git a/html5lib/serializer/htmlserializer.py b/html5lib/serializer/htmlserializer.py
index 18344aed..1f7cace1 100644
--- a/html5lib/serializer/htmlserializer.py
+++ b/html5lib/serializer/htmlserializer.py
@@ -226,7 +226,7 @@ def serialize(self, treewalker, encoding=None):
                     in_cdata = True
                 elif in_cdata:
                     self.serializeError(_("Unexpected child element of a CDATA element"))
-                for (attr_namespace, attr_name), attr_value in sorted(token["data"].items()):
+                for (attr_namespace, attr_name), attr_value in token["data"].items():
                     # TODO: Add namespace support here
                     k = attr_name
                     v = attr_value
diff --git a/html5lib/tests/test_serializer.py b/html5lib/tests/test_serializer.py
index adebf609..93dd0e11 100644
--- a/html5lib/tests/test_serializer.py
+++ b/html5lib/tests/test_serializer.py
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@
 
 import html5lib
 from html5lib import serializer, constants
+from html5lib.filters.alphabeticalattributes import Filter as AlphabeticalAttributesFilter
 from html5lib.treewalkers._base import TreeWalker
 
 optionals_loaded = []
@@ -84,7 +85,8 @@ def _convertAttrib(self, attribs):
 
 def serialize_html(input, options):
     options = dict([(str(k), v) for k, v in options.items()])
-    return serializer.HTMLSerializer(**options).render(JsonWalker(input), options.get("encoding", None))
+    stream = AlphabeticalAttributesFilter(JsonWalker(input))
+    return serializer.HTMLSerializer(**options).render(stream, options.get("encoding", None))
 
 
 def runSerializerTest(input, expected, options):
diff --git a/requirements-optional-2.6.txt b/requirements-optional-2.6.txt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..d1e6a805
--- /dev/null
+++ b/requirements-optional-2.6.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+# Can be used to force attributes to be serialized in alphabetical
+# order.
+ordereddict
diff --git a/requirements-test.txt b/requirements-test.txt
index f3c7e8e6..06d9dbca 100644
--- a/requirements-test.txt
+++ b/requirements-test.txt
@@ -1 +1,2 @@
 nose
+ordereddict # Python 2.6
diff --git a/tox.ini b/tox.ini
index 724efa6c..bdbc0adf 100644
--- a/tox.ini
+++ b/tox.ini
@@ -11,3 +11,14 @@ deps =
   six
 commands =
   {envbindir}/nosetests
+
+[testenv:py26]
+basepython = python2.6
+deps =
+  charade
+  datrie
+  Genshi
+  lxml
+  ordereddict
+  nose
+  six