diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 56d01fab3e1da8fc8391bc2ae2da5833b9266f95..c0ab2a70dc78b9b89be5575b61350bfce489a90a 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ AC_CHECK_HEADERS(mcheck.h values.h socket.h sys/socket.h  \
                  stdbool.h sys/ipc.h sys/shm.h sys/sem.h errno.h \
                  stdlib.h dirent.h pthread.h sys/prctl.h \
                  sysint.h inttypes.h termcap.h netdb.h sys/socket.h  \
-                 sys/systemcfg.h curses.h\
+                 sys/systemcfg.h ncurses.h curses.h\
 		 )
 AC_HEADER_SYS_WAIT
 AC_HEADER_TIME
@@ -105,6 +105,7 @@ LIBS="$PTHREAD_LIBS $LIBS"
 X_AC_AIX
 X_AC_BGL
 X_AC_SLURM_SEMAPHORE
+X_AC_NCURSES
 
 dnl checks for system services.
 dnl
diff --git a/src/smap/Makefile.am b/src/smap/Makefile.am
index f70e2f793b3369364f1f0196b71b7b1c996dde11..8a054722b8138fb978b6c337165159c96a0ff13c 100644
--- a/src/smap/Makefile.am
+++ b/src/smap/Makefile.am
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 
 AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS = foreign
 
-LIBS=-lcurses
+LIBS=-l$(NCURSES)
 INCLUDES = -I$(top_srcdir) -I 
 bin_PROGRAMS = smap