Index: django/conf/global_settings.py
===================================================================
--- django/conf/global_settings.py	(revision 4410)
+++ django/conf/global_settings.py	(working copy)
@@ -113,6 +113,9 @@
 EMAIL_HOST_USER = ''
 EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = ''
 
+# Whether to use a multi-threaded development server.
+USE_MULTITHREADED_SERVER = False
+
 # List of strings representing installed apps.
 INSTALLED_APPS = ()
 
Index: django/core/servers/basehttp.py
===================================================================
--- django/core/servers/basehttp.py	(revision 4410)
+++ django/core/servers/basehttp.py	(working copy)
@@ -7,10 +7,20 @@
 been reviewed for security issues. Don't use it for production use.
 """
 
-from BaseHTTPServer import BaseHTTPRequestHandler, HTTPServer
+from django.conf import settings
+from BaseHTTPServer import BaseHTTPRequestHandler
 from types import ListType, StringType
 import os, re, sys, time, urllib
 
+if settings.USE_MULTITHREADED_SERVER:
+    # This creates a base HTTPServer class that supports multithreading
+    import BaseHTTPServer, SocketServer
+    class HTTPServer(SocketServer.ThreadingMixIn, BaseHTTPServer.HTTPServer):
+        def __init__(self, server_address, RequestHandlerClass=None):
+            BaseHTTPServer.HTTPServer.__init__(self, server_address, RequestHandlerClass)
+else:
+    from BaseHTTPServer import HTTPServer
+
 __version__ = "0.1"
 __all__ = ['WSGIServer','WSGIRequestHandler','demo_app']
 
Index: docs/settings.txt
===================================================================
--- docs/settings.txt	(revision 4410)
+++ docs/settings.txt	(working copy)
@@ -856,6 +856,15 @@
 set to ``False``, Django will make some optimizations so as not to load the
 internationalization machinery.
 
+USE_MULTITHREADED_SERVER
+------------------------
+
+Default: ``False``
+
+A boolean that specifies whether Django's built-in development server
+should run multi-threaded.  Caution should be taken when setting this to
+True so as to avoid multi-threading bugs in your views.
+
 YEAR_MONTH_FORMAT
 -----------------