diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 7f3af26..9da7137 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -20,7 +20,8 @@ If you ask for less colors, the last one will be duplicated across remaining
 groups.
 
 Available colors are: blue, black, yellow, cyan, green, magenta, white, red,
-rainbow, random, Random, scale, none or any number between 0 and 255.
+rainbow, random, Random, scale, none, an RGB hexadecimal triplet or any number
+between 0 and 255.
 
 Available styles are: normal, bold, faint, italic, underline, blink,
 rapid_blink, reverse, conceal or random (some styles may have no effect, depending
@@ -38,9 +39,11 @@ below, [0-100] by default).
 If the python-pygments library is installed, you can use the name of a
 syntax-coloring "lexer" as a color (for example: "Cpp", "ruby", "xml+django", etc.).
 
-If GIMP palettes files (*.gpl) are available, you can also use their names
-as a colormap. Note that the RGB colors will be converted to their nearest ANSI
-256-colors mode equivalents (see the `-P` switch below).
+If GIMP palettes files (*.gpl) are available, you can also use their names as a
+colormap (see the `-P` switch below).
+
+Note that the RGB colors (either the hex triplets or the palettes's colors) will
+be converted to their nearest ANSI 256-colors mode equivalents.
 
 When not specified, a *COLOR* defaults to _red_ and a *STYLE* defaults to _bold_.
 
diff --git a/colout/colout.py b/colout/colout.py
index 2f756f3..29b9cc4 100755
--- a/colout/colout.py
+++ b/colout/colout.py
@@ -99,6 +99,13 @@ def rgb_to_ansi( red, green, blue ):
         return int(val)
 
 
+def hex_to_rgb(h):
+    assert( h[0] == "#" )
+    h = h.lstrip('#')
+    lh = len(h)
+    return tuple( int(h[i:i+lh//3], 16) for i in range(0, lh, lh//3) )
+
+
 ###############################################################################
 # Global variables
 ###############################################################################
@@ -339,6 +346,13 @@ def colorin(text, color="red", style="normal"):
         mode = 8
         color_code = str(30 + colors[color])
 
+    # hexadecimal color
+    elif color[0] == "#":
+        mode = 256
+        color_nb = rgb_to_ansi(*hex_to_rgb(color))
+        assert(0 <= color_nb <= 255)
+        color_code = str(color_nb)
+
     # 256 colors mode
     elif color.isdigit():
         mode = 256