diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index e2922e71738..a9b8006833c 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -154,6 +154,8 @@ API Changes
     NO_NORMS becomes NOT_ANALYZED_NO_NORMS and a new ANALYZED_NO_NORMS
     is added.  (Mike McCandless)
 
+24. LUCENE-1131: Added numDeletedDocs method to IndexReader (Otis Gospodnetic)
+
 Bug fixes
     
  1. LUCENE-1134: Fixed BooleanQuery.rewrite to only optimize a single 
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/IndexReader.java b/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/IndexReader.java
index a934a82ca67..394b46620c0 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/IndexReader.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/IndexReader.java
@@ -622,6 +622,11 @@ public abstract class IndexReader {
    */
   public abstract int maxDoc();
 
+  /** Returns the number of deleted documents. */
+  public int numDeletedDocs() {
+    return maxDoc() - numDocs();
+  }
+
   /** Returns the stored fields of the <code>n</code><sup>th</sup>
    <code>Document</code> in this index.
    * @throws CorruptIndexException if the index is corrupt