diff --git a/elements/source-repositories/README.md b/elements/source-repositories/README.md
index 5243c441..82c3a257 100644
--- a/elements/source-repositories/README.md
+++ b/elements/source-repositories/README.md
@@ -36,6 +36,9 @@ fetch/pull section of a review. For example:
     DIB_REPOLOCATION_nova=https://review.openstack.org/openstack/nova
     DIB_REPOREF_nova=refs/changes/72/61972/8
 
+Additionally, the lines in the source-repository scripts are eval'd, so they
+may contain environment variables.
+
 Git sources will be cloned to \<destination\>
 
 Tarballs will be extracted to \<destination\>. Tarballs should contain a
diff --git a/elements/source-repositories/extra-data.d/98-source-repositories b/elements/source-repositories/extra-data.d/98-source-repositories
index 6ebd0cb4..86b1275a 100755
--- a/elements/source-repositories/extra-data.d/98-source-repositories
+++ b/elements/source-repositories/extra-data.d/98-source-repositories
@@ -12,7 +12,9 @@ function get_repos_for_element(){
 
     local REGEX="^([^ ]+) (git|tar|file|package) ?(/[^ ]+)? ?([^ ]+)? ?([^ ]*)$"
 
-    while read line ; do
+    while read line; do
+        # expand variables
+        line=$(eval echo $line)
 
         # ignore blank lines and lines beginning in '#'
         [[ "$line" == \#* ]] || [[ -z "$line" ]] && continue