diff --git a/container/intsets/popcnt_amd64.go b/container/intsets/popcnt_amd64.go
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..858431ccca
--- /dev/null
+++ b/container/intsets/popcnt_amd64.go
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+// Copyright 2015 The Go Authors. All rights reserved.
+// Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style
+// license that can be found in the LICENSE file.
+
+// +build amd64
+
+package intsets
+
+func popcnt(x word) int
+func havePOPCNT() bool
+
+var hasPOPCNT = havePOPCNT()
+
+// popcount returns the population count (number of set bits) of x.
+func popcount(x word) int {
+	if hasPOPCNT {
+		return popcnt(x)
+	}
+	return popcountTable(x) // faster than Hacker's Delight
+}
diff --git a/container/intsets/popcnt_amd64.s b/container/intsets/popcnt_amd64.s
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..6538b91d5e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/container/intsets/popcnt_amd64.s
@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+// Copyright 2015 The Go Authors. All rights reserved.
+// Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style
+// license that can be found in the LICENSE file.
+
+#include "textflag.h"
+
+// func havePOPCNT() bool
+TEXT ·havePOPCNT(SB),4,$0
+	MOVQ	$1, AX
+	CPUID
+	SHRQ	$23, CX
+	ANDQ	$1, CX
+	MOVB	CX, ret+0(FP)
+	RET
+
+// func popcnt(word) int
+TEXT ·popcnt(SB),NOSPLIT,$0-8
+	XORQ	AX, AX
+	MOVQ	x+0(FP), SI
+	// POPCNT (SI), AX is not recognized by Go assembler,
+	// so we assemble it ourselves.
+	BYTE	$0xf3
+	BYTE	$0x48
+	BYTE	$0x0f
+	BYTE	$0xb8
+	BYTE	$0xc6
+	MOVQ	AX, ret+8(FP)
+	RET
diff --git a/container/intsets/popcnt_generic.go b/container/intsets/popcnt_generic.go
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..0dc1d7196b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/container/intsets/popcnt_generic.go
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+// Copyright 2015 The Go Authors. All rights reserved.
+// Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style
+// license that can be found in the LICENSE file.
+
+// +build !amd64
+
+package intsets
+
+import "runtime"
+
+// We compared three algorithms---Hacker's Delight, table lookup,
+// and AMD64's SSE4.1 hardware POPCNT---on a 2.67GHz Xeon X5550.
+//
+// % GOARCH=amd64 go test -run=NONE -bench=Popcount
+// POPCNT               5.12 ns/op
+// Table                8.53 ns/op
+// HackersDelight       9.96 ns/op
+//
+// % GOARCH=386 go test -run=NONE -bench=Popcount
+// Table               10.4  ns/op
+// HackersDelight       5.23 ns/op
+//
+// (AMD64's ABM1 hardware supports ntz and nlz too,
+// but they aren't critical.)
+
+// popcount returns the population count (number of set bits) of x.
+func popcount(x word) int {
+	if runtime.GOARCH == "386" {
+		return popcountHD(uint32(x))
+	}
+	return popcountTable(x)
+}
diff --git a/container/intsets/util.go b/container/intsets/util.go
index 76e682cf4d..dd1db86b1c 100644
--- a/container/intsets/util.go
+++ b/container/intsets/util.go
@@ -4,6 +4,16 @@
 
 package intsets
 
+// From Hacker's Delight, fig 5.2.
+func popcountHD(x uint32) int {
+	x -= (x >> 1) & 0x55555555
+	x = (x & 0x33333333) + ((x >> 2) & 0x33333333)
+	x = (x + (x >> 4)) & 0x0f0f0f0f
+	x = x + (x >> 8)
+	x = x + (x >> 16)
+	return int(x & 0x0000003f)
+}
+
 var a [1 << 8]byte
 
 func init() {
@@ -18,8 +28,7 @@ func init() {
 	}
 }
 
-// popcount returns the population count (number of set bits) of x.
-func popcount(x word) int {
+func popcountTable(x word) int {
 	return int(a[byte(x>>(0*8))] +
 		a[byte(x>>(1*8))] +
 		a[byte(x>>(2*8))] +
diff --git a/container/intsets/util_test.go b/container/intsets/util_test.go
index 92a4bc58bc..e4cc6597f1 100644
--- a/container/intsets/util_test.go
+++ b/container/intsets/util_test.go
@@ -4,7 +4,10 @@
 
 package intsets
 
-import "testing"
+import (
+	"math/rand"
+	"testing"
+)
 
 func TestNLZ(t *testing.T) {
 	// Test the platform-specific edge case.
@@ -23,3 +26,33 @@ func TestNLZ(t *testing.T) {
 
 // Backdoor for testing.
 func (s *Sparse) Check() error { return s.check() }
+
+func dumbPopcount(x word) int {
+	var popcnt int
+	for i := uint(0); i < bitsPerWord; i++ {
+		if x&(1<<i) != 0 {
+			popcnt++
+		}
+	}
+	return popcnt
+}
+
+func TestPopcount(t *testing.T) {
+	for i := 0; i < 1e5; i++ {
+		x := word(rand.Uint32())
+		if bitsPerWord == 64 {
+			x = x | (word(rand.Uint32()) << 32)
+		}
+		want := dumbPopcount(x)
+		got := popcount(x)
+		if got != want {
+			t.Errorf("popcount(%d) = %d, want %d", x, got, want)
+		}
+	}
+}
+
+func BenchmarkPopcount(b *testing.B) {
+	for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ {
+		popcount(word(i))
+	}
+}