diff a/Doc/library/warnings.rst b/Doc/library/warnings.rst
--- a/Doc/library/warnings.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/warnings.rst
@@ -388,3 +388,21 @@
 
     .. versionadded:: 2.6
 
+Pre-built option
+----------------
+
+.. data:: option
+
+   Pre-built :class:`optparse.Option` instance providing the same
+   functions as the :option:`-W` interpreter flag. Useful when
+   building tools related to running Python code such as a web
+   framework's development framework or a pluggable system, in order
+   to let users of the tool manipulate warnings without having to
+   explicitly call the Python interpreter.
+
+   .. note::
+
+      In restricted environments where :mod:`optparse` is not
+      available, :data:`option` is set to `None`.
+
+   .. versionadded:: 2.7
diff a/Lib/warnings.py b/Lib/warnings.py
--- a/Lib/warnings.py
+++ b/Lib/warnings.py
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 import types
 
 __all__ = ["warn", "showwarning", "formatwarning", "filterwarnings",
-           "resetwarnings", "catch_warnings"]
+           "resetwarnings", "catch_warnings", "option"]
 
 
 def warnpy3k(message, category=None, stacklevel=1):
@@ -397,3 +397,14 @@
         bytes_action = "ignore"
     simplefilter(bytes_action, category=BytesWarning, append=1)
 del _warnings_defaults
+
+# optparse option to control warnings settings
+option = None
+try:
+    import optparse
+    option = optparse.Option(
+        '-W', action="callback", type=str, metavar='arg',
+        help='warning control; arg is action:message:category:module:lineno',
+        callback=lambda caller, option, value, parser: _setoption(value))
+except ImportError:
+    pass