diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 3e5677ff7..ad17693a9 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -1,9 +1,12 @@
 sudo: false
 language: cpp
+cache:
+  pip: true
+  directories:
+    - $HOME/lua53
 addons:
   apt:
     packages: &default_packages
-      - lua5.2
       - libxml-libxml-perl
       - libxml-libxslt-perl
       - zlib1g-dev:i386
@@ -19,8 +22,10 @@ matrix:
             - gcc-4.8-multilib
             - g++-4.8-multilib
 before_install:
-  pip install --user "sphinx==1.4" "requests[security]"
+- pip install --user "sphinx==1.4" "requests[security]"
+- sh travis/build-lua.sh
 script:
+- export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/lua53/bin"
 - git tag tmp-travis-build
 - sh travis/git-info.sh
 - sphinx-build -qW -j3 . docs/html
@@ -28,7 +33,7 @@ script:
 - python travis/lint.py
 - python travis/authors-rst.py
 - python travis/script-docs.py
-- python travis/script-syntax.py --ext=lua --cmd="luac5.2 -p" || true
+- python travis/script-syntax.py --ext=lua --cmd="luac5.3 -p"
 - python travis/script-syntax.py --ext=rb --cmd="ruby -c"
 - mkdir build-travis
 - cd build-travis
diff --git a/travis/build-lua.sh b/travis/build-lua.sh
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e29d7ce87
--- /dev/null
+++ b/travis/build-lua.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+
+set -e
+
+LUA_ROOT="$HOME/lua53"
+LUA_URL="http://www.lua.org/ftp/lua-5.3.3.tar.gz"
+LUA_TAR=$(basename "$LUA_URL")
+LUA_DIR="$LUA_ROOT/${LUA_TAR%.tar.*}"
+LUA_SHA1="a0341bc3d1415b814cc738b2ec01ae56045d64ef"
+
+echo LUA_ROOT $LUA_ROOT
+echo LUA_TAR $LUA_TAR
+echo LUA_DIR $LUA_DIR
+
+sha1() {
+    python -c 'import hashlib, sys; print(hashlib.sha1(open(sys.argv[1],"rb").read()).hexdigest())' "$1"
+}
+
+download() {
+    echo "Downloading $LUA_URL"
+    wget -O "$LUA_ROOT/$LUA_TAR" "$LUA_URL"
+    tar xvf "$LUA_ROOT/$LUA_TAR"
+}
+
+build() {
+    cd "$LUA_DIR/src"
+    make generic
+}
+
+main() {
+    mkdir -p "$LUA_ROOT"
+    cd "$LUA_ROOT"
+    mkdir -p bin
+
+    if [ "$(sha1 "$LUA_ROOT/$LUA_TAR" 2>/dev/null)" != "$LUA_SHA1" ]; then
+        download
+        build
+    else
+        echo "Already downloaded"
+
+        if [ -x "$LUA_DIR/src/luac" ]; then
+            echo "Already built"
+        else
+            build
+        fi
+    fi
+
+    echo "Linking"
+    ln -sf "$LUA_DIR/src/lua" "$LUA_ROOT/bin/lua5.3"
+    ln -sf "$LUA_DIR/src/luac" "$LUA_ROOT/bin/luac5.3"
+    echo "Done"
+}
+
+main