diff --git a/boltons/strutils.py b/boltons/strutils.py
index 5bb265f..3678536 100644
--- a/boltons/strutils.py
+++ b/boltons/strutils.py
@@ -1,23 +1,37 @@
 # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
+
 import re
 import string
+import unicodedata
+
+from compat import str, unicode, basestring, bytes
 
 _punct_ws_str = string.punctuation + string.whitespace
 _punct_re = re.compile('[' + _punct_ws_str + ']+')
 _camel2under_re = re.compile('((?<=[a-z0-9])[A-Z]|(?!^)[A-Z](?=[a-z]))')
 
 
-def slugify(text, delim='_'):
+def slugify(text, delim='_', lower=True, ascii=False):
     """
     A basic function that turns text full of scary characters
     (i.e., punctuation and whitespace), into a relatively safe
     lowercased string separated only by the delimiter specified
-    by 'delim', which defaults to '_'.
+    by `delim`, which defaults to '_'.
+
+    The `ascii` convenience flag will asciify the slug if you require
+    ascii-only slugs.
 
     >>> slugify('First post! Hi!!!!~1    ')
     'first_post_hi_1'
+    >>> slugify("Kurt Gödel's pretty cool.", ascii=True)
+    'kurt_goedel_s_pretty_cool'
     """
-    return delim.join(split_punct_ws(text)).lower()
+    ret = delim.join(split_punct_ws(text))
+    if ascii:
+        ret = asciify(ret)
+    if lower:
+        ret = ret.lower()
+    return ret
 
 
 def split_punct_ws(text):
@@ -52,3 +66,124 @@ def under2camel(under_string):
     'ComplexTokenizer'
     """
     return ''.join(w.capitalize() or '_' for w in under_string.split('_'))
+
+
+def asciify(text, ignore=False):
+    """
+    Converts a unicode or bytestring into a bytestring with
+    just ascii characters. Performs basic deaccenting for all you
+    Europhiles out there.
+
+    Also, a gentle reminder that this is a _utility_, primarily meant
+    for slugification. Whenever possible, make your application work
+    _with_ unicode, not against it.
+
+    >>> asciify('Beyoncé')
+    'Beyonce'
+    """
+    try:
+        try:
+            return text.encode('ascii')
+        except UnicodeDecodeError:
+            # this usually means you passed in a non-unicode string
+            text = text.decode('utf-8')
+            return text.encode('ascii')
+    except UnicodeEncodeError:
+        mode = 'replace'
+        if ignore:
+            mode = 'ignore'
+        transd = unicodedata.normalize('NFKD', text.translate(DEACCENT_MAP))
+        ret = transd.encode('ascii', mode)
+        return ret
+
+
+class DeaccenterDict(dict):
+    def __missing__(self, key):
+        ch = self.get(key)
+        if ch is not None:
+            return ch
+        try:
+            de = unicodedata.decomposition(unichr(key))
+            p1, _, p2 = de.rpartition(' ')
+            if int(p2, 16) == 0x308:
+                ch = self.get(key)
+            else:
+                ch = int(p1, 16)
+        except (IndexError, ValueError):
+            ch = self.get(key, key)
+        self[key] = ch
+        return ch
+
+    try:
+        from collections import defaultdict
+    except ImportError:
+        # no defaultdict means that __missing__ isn't supported in
+        # this version of python, so we define __getitem__
+        def __getitem__(self, key):
+            try:
+                return super(DeaccenterDict, self).__getitem__(key)
+            except KeyError:
+                return self.__missing__(key)
+    else:
+        del defaultdict
+
+
+_BASE_DEACCENT_MAP = {
+    0xc6: u"AE", # Æ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER AE
+    0xd0: u"D",  # Ð LATIN CAPITAL LETTER ETH
+    0xd8: u"OE", # Ø LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH STROKE
+    0xde: u"Th", # Þ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER THORN
+    0xc4: u'Ae', # Ä LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS
+    0xd6: u'Oe', # Ö LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH DIAERESIS
+    0xdc: u'Ue', # Ü LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH DIAERESIS
+    0xc0: u"A",  # À LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH GRAVE
+    0xc1: u"A",  # Á LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH ACUTE
+    0xc3: u"A",  # Ã LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH TILDE
+    0xc7: u"C",  # Ç LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH CEDILLA
+    0xc8: u"E",  # È LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH GRAVE
+    0xc9: u"E",  # É LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH ACUTE
+    0xca: u"E",  # Ê LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH CIRCUMFLEX
+    0xcc: u"I",  # Ì LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH GRAVE
+    0xcd: u"I",  # Í LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH ACUTE
+    0xd2: u"O",  # Ò LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH GRAVE
+    0xd3: u"O",  # Ó LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH ACUTE
+    0xd5: u"O",  # Õ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH TILDE
+    0xd9: u"U",  # Ù LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH GRAVE
+    0xda: u"U",  # Ú LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH ACUTE
+    0xdf: u"ss", # ß LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S
+    0xe6: u"ae", # æ LATIN SMALL LETTER AE
+    0xf0: u"d",  # ð LATIN SMALL LETTER ETH
+    0xf8: u"oe", # ø LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH STROKE
+    0xfe: u"th", # þ LATIN SMALL LETTER THORN,
+    0xe4: u'ae', # ä LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS
+    0xf6: u'oe', # ö LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH DIAERESIS
+    0xfc: u'ue', # ü LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH DIAERESIS
+    0xe0: u"a",  # à LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH GRAVE
+    0xe1: u"a",  # á LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH ACUTE
+    0xe3: u"a",  # ã LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH TILDE
+    0xe7: u"c",  # ç LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH CEDILLA
+    0xe8: u"e",  # è LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH GRAVE
+    0xe9: u"e",  # é LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE
+    0xea: u"e",  # ê LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH CIRCUMFLEX
+    0xec: u"i",  # ì LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH GRAVE
+    0xed: u"i",  # í LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH ACUTE
+    0xf2: u"o",  # ò LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH GRAVE
+    0xf3: u"o",  # ó LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH ACUTE
+    0xf5: u"o",  # õ LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH TILDE
+    0xf9: u"u",  # ù LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH GRAVE
+    0xfa: u"u",  # ú LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH ACUTE
+    0x2018: u"'",  # ‘ LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK
+    0x2019: u"'",  # ’ RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK
+    0x201c: u'"',  # “ LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK
+    0x201d: u'"',  # ” RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK
+    }
+
+
+DEACCENT_MAP = DeaccenterDict(_BASE_DEACCENT_MAP)
+
+
+if __name__ == '__main__':
+    b = asciify(u'Beyoncé')
+    print ord(b[-1])
+    print b
+    print DEACCENT_MAP