diff --git a/feedgen/compat.py b/feedgen/compat.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dc9127e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/feedgen/compat.py
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
+
+import sys
+if sys.version_info[0] >= 3:
+	string_types = str
+else:
+	string_types = basestring
diff --git a/feedgen/entry.py b/feedgen/entry.py
index 6532e27..bf17d5f 100644
--- a/feedgen/entry.py
+++ b/feedgen/entry.py
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ from datetime import datetime
 import dateutil.parser
 import dateutil.tz
 from feedgen.util import ensure_format
-from six import string_types
+from feedgen.compat import string_types
 
 
 class FeedEntry(object):
diff --git a/feedgen/feed.py b/feedgen/feed.py
index b7ce1c6..ad38109 100644
--- a/feedgen/feed.py
+++ b/feedgen/feed.py
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ from feedgen.entry import FeedEntry
 from feedgen.util import ensure_format
 import feedgen.version
 import sys
-from six import string_types
+from feedgen.compat import string_types
 
 
 _feedgen_version = feedgen.version.version_str
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 87d87ef..059dcb7 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ setup(
 		url = 'http://lkiesow.github.io/python-feedgen',
 		keywords = ['feed','ATOM','RSS','podcast'],
 		license = 'FreeBSD and LGPLv3+',
-		install_requires = ['lxml', 'dateutils', 'six'],
+		install_requires = ['lxml', 'dateutils'],
 		classifiers = [
 			'Development Status :: 4 - Beta',
 			'Development Status :: 5 - Production/Stable',