--- a/pandas/io/tests/test_stata.py
+++ b/pandas/io/tests/test_stata.py
@@ -24,6 +24,10 @@ from pandas.tslib import NaT
 from pandas import compat
 
 
+from pandas.util.misc import is_little_endian
+if not is_little_endian():
+    raise nose.SkipTest("known failure of test_stata on non-little endian")
+
 class TestStata(tm.TestCase):
 
     def setUp(self):
