diff --git a/Lib/distutils/command/build.py b/Lib/distutils/command/build.py
index 9ae0a292a32..bca031f7301 100644
--- a/Lib/distutils/command/build.py
+++ b/Lib/distutils/command/build.py
@@ -69,6 +69,12 @@ class build (Command):
 
         plat_specifier = ".%s-%s" % (get_platform(), sys.version[0:3])
 
+        # Make it so Python 2.x and Python 2.x with --with-pydebug don't
+        # share the same build directories. Doing so confuses the build
+        # process for C modules
+        if hasattr(sys, 'gettotalrefcount'):
+            plat_specifier += '-pydebug'
+
         # 'build_purelib' and 'build_platlib' just default to 'lib' and
         # 'lib.<plat>' under the base build directory.  We only use one of
         # them for a given distribution, though --
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index 576895149b3..2f4d48e5597 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -369,6 +369,10 @@ Core and builtins
 Library
 -------
 
+- Bug #1530959: distutils' build command now uses different build directory
+  when building extension modules against versions of Python compiled
+  with ``--with-pydebug``.
+
 - #1555501: move plistlib from plat-mac directory to general library.
 
 - #1269: fix a bug in pstats.add_callers() and add a unit test file for