diff --git a/README b/README
index 35a481c..bde1ae0 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -65,3 +65,9 @@ MINIFY USAGE
 Example 1 shows an example of using Minify to serve external CSS and JS files
 with far-off Expires headers. Clients will always have up-to-date versions
 because Minify_Build is used to time stamp the URLs.
+
+FILE ENCODINGS
+
+Minify *should* work fine with files encoded in UTF-8 or other 8-bit 
+encodings like ISO 8859/Windows-1252. Leading UTF-8 BOMs are stripped from
+all sources to prevent duplication in output files.
diff --git a/lib/Minify/Source.php b/lib/Minify/Source.php
index 32af571..337931e 100644
--- a/lib/Minify/Source.php
+++ b/lib/Minify/Source.php
@@ -78,12 +78,16 @@ class Minify_Source {
      */
     public function getContent()
     {
-        return (null !== $this->_filepath)
+        $content = (null !== $this->_filepath)
 			? file_get_contents($this->_filepath)
 			: ((null !== $this->_content)
 				? $this->_content
 				: call_user_func($this->_getContentFunc, $this->_id)
 			);
+		// remove UTF-8 BOM if present
+		return (pack("CCC",0xef,0xbb,0xbf) === substr($content, 0, 3))
+		    ? substr($content, 3)
+		    : $content;
     }
     
     /**
diff --git a/web/test/_test_files/minify/QueryString.js b/web/test/_test_files/minify/QueryString.js
index d926d64..e56a244 100644
--- a/web/test/_test_files/minify/QueryString.js
+++ b/web/test/_test_files/minify/QueryString.js
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-var MrClay = window.MrClay || {};
+var MrClay = window.MrClay || {};
 
 /**
  * Simplified access to/manipulation of the query string
diff --git a/web/test/_test_files/minify/email.js b/web/test/_test_files/minify/email.js
index b725379..761062d 100644
--- a/web/test/_test_files/minify/email.js
+++ b/web/test/_test_files/minify/email.js
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-// http://mrclay.org/
+// http://mrclay.org/
 (function(){
 	var
 		reMailto = /^mailto:my_name_is_(\S+)_and_the_domain_is_(\S+)$/,