diff --git a/sandbox/contributions/ant/src/main/org/apache/lucene/ant/IndexTask.java b/sandbox/contributions/ant/src/main/org/apache/lucene/ant/IndexTask.java
index fde7e8635ea..d1d5f4d5329 100644
--- a/sandbox/contributions/ant/src/main/org/apache/lucene/ant/IndexTask.java
+++ b/sandbox/contributions/ant/src/main/org/apache/lucene/ant/IndexTask.java
@@ -84,6 +84,8 @@ public class IndexTask extends Task {
 
   private HandlerConfig handlerConfig;
 
+  private boolean useCompoundIndex = true;
+
 
   /**
    *  Creates new instance
@@ -120,6 +122,14 @@ public class IndexTask extends Task {
   }
 
 
+  /**
+   * If creating a new index and this is set to true, the
+   * index will be created in compound format.
+   */ 
+  public void setUseCompoundIndex(boolean useCompoundIndex) {
+    this.useCompoundIndex = useCompoundIndex;
+  }
+
   /**
    *  Sets the documentHandler attribute of the IndexTask object
    *
@@ -234,6 +244,10 @@ public class IndexTask extends Task {
 
     IndexWriter writer =
       new IndexWriter(indexDir, analyzer, create);
+
+    if (create && useCompoundIndex) {
+      writer.setUseCompoundFile(useCompoundIndex);
+    }
     int totalFiles = 0;
     int totalIndexed = 0;
     int totalIgnored = 0;