diff --git a/Lib/test/regrtest.py b/Lib/test/regrtest.py
--- a/Lib/test/regrtest.py
+++ b/Lib/test/regrtest.py
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@
                 -- dump the traceback and exit if a test takes more
                    than TIMEOUT seconds (default: 30 minutes); disable
                    the timeout if TIMEOUT is zero
+-a/--attach     -- wait for user input to allow a debugger to be attached
 
 Verbosity
 
@@ -268,13 +269,13 @@
 
     support.record_original_stdout(sys.stdout)
     try:
-        opts, args = getopt.getopt(sys.argv[1:], 'hvqxsSrf:lu:t:TD:NLR:FwWM:nj:',
+        opts, args = getopt.getopt(sys.argv[1:], 'hvqxsSrf:lu:t:TD:NLR:FwWM:nj:a',
             ['help', 'verbose', 'verbose2', 'verbose3', 'quiet',
              'exclude', 'single', 'slow', 'random', 'fromfile', 'findleaks',
              'use=', 'threshold=', 'trace', 'coverdir=', 'nocoverdir',
              'runleaks', 'huntrleaks=', 'memlimit=', 'randseed=',
              'multiprocess=', 'coverage', 'slaveargs=', 'forever', 'debug',
-             'start=', 'nowindows', 'header', 'testdir=', 'timeout='])
+             'start=', 'nowindows', 'header', 'testdir=', 'timeout=', 'attach'])
     except getopt.error as msg:
         usage(msg)
 
@@ -410,6 +411,8 @@
             testdir = os.path.join(support.SAVEDCWD, a)
         elif o == '--timeout':
             timeout = float(a)
+        elif o in ('-a', '--attach'):
+            input("Attach a debugger. Press any key to continue...")
         else:
             print(("No handler for option {}.  Please report this as a bug "
                    "at http://bugs.python.org.").format(o), file=sys.stderr)