diff --git a/test/ruby/test_time.rb b/test/ruby/test_time.rb
index 2a56836..7a85145 100644
--- a/test/ruby/test_time.rb
+++ b/test/ruby/test_time.rb
@@ -40,6 +40,14 @@ class TestTime < Test::Unit::TestCase
     assert_equal([2001,2,28,23,59,30,-43200], [t.year, t.month, t.mday, t.hour, t.min, t.sec, t.gmt_offset], bug4090)
   end
 
+  def test_elapsed
+    assert_operator Time.now.elapsed, :>, 0
+    now = Time.now
+    lap1 = now.elapsed
+    lap2 = now.elapsed
+    assert_operator lap2, :>, lap1
+  end
+
   def test_time_add()
     assert_equal(Time.utc(2000, 3, 21, 3, 30) + 3 * 3600,
                  Time.utc(2000, 3, 21, 6, 30))
diff --git a/time.c b/time.c
index c0fca66..1265673 100644
--- a/time.c
+++ b/time.c
@@ -3726,6 +3726,45 @@ time_minus(VALUE time1, VALUE time2)
 }
 
 /*
+ *  call-seq:
+ *     time.elapsed  -> integer
+ *
+ *  Elapsed amount of time (in nanoseconds) since _time_ was created.
+ *
+ *     t = Time.now       #=> 2007-11-19 08:23:10 -0600
+ *     t.elapsed          #=> 3022418000
+ */
+
+static VALUE
+time_elapsed(VALUE self)
+{
+    struct time_object *tobj;
+    struct timespec ts;
+    wideval_t timew;
+
+    GetTimeval(self, tobj);
+
+#ifdef HAVE_CLOCK_GETTIME
+    if (clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, &ts) == -1) {
+	rb_sys_fail("clock_gettime");
+    }
+#else
+    {
+        struct timeval tv;
+        if (gettimeofday(&tv, 0) < 0) {
+            rb_sys_fail("gettimeofday");
+        }
+        ts.tv_sec = tv.tv_sec;
+        ts.tv_nsec = tv.tv_usec * 1000;
+    }
+#endif
+
+    timew = timespec2timew(&ts);
+
+    return rb_to_int(w2v(wsub(timew, tobj->timew)));
+}
+
+/*
  * call-seq:
  *   time.succ   -> new_time
  *
@@ -4947,6 +4986,7 @@ Init_Time(void)
 
     rb_define_method(rb_cTime, "+", time_plus, 1);
     rb_define_method(rb_cTime, "-", time_minus, 1);
+    rb_define_method(rb_cTime, "elapsed", time_elapsed, 0);
 
     rb_define_method(rb_cTime, "succ", time_succ, 0);
     rb_define_method(rb_cTime, "round", time_round, -1);