diff --git a/Lib/test/test_urllib2.py b/Lib/test/test_urllib2.py
index 4b92d6317a0..0316c3f4636 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_urllib2.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_urllib2.py
@@ -6,6 +6,10 @@
 import socket
 import array
 import sys
+try:
+    import ssl
+except ImportError:
+    ssl = None
 
 import urllib.request
 # The proxy bypass method imported below has logic specific to the OSX
@@ -1438,6 +1442,8 @@ class MyOtherHTTPHandler(urllib.request.HTTPHandler): pass
 
     @unittest.skipUnless(support.is_resource_enabled('network'),
                          'test requires network access')
+    @unittest.skipIf(ssl is None,
+                     'test requires the ssl module')
     def test_issue16464(self):
         opener = urllib.request.build_opener()
         request = urllib.request.Request("http://www.python.org/~jeremy/")