diff --git a/activerecord/CHANGELOG.md b/activerecord/CHANGELOG.md
index 74f2b2287fc0eeedda85cde5a81f8facc95d6189..f60ea9838bafea05e1c1f855e00c3fb8b2aef1ec 100644
--- a/activerecord/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/activerecord/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+*   Create a directory for sqlite3 file if not present on the system.
+
+    *Richard Schneeman*
+
 *   Removed redundant override of `xml` column definition for PG,
     in order to use `xml` column type instead of `text`.
 
diff --git a/activerecord/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/sqlite3_adapter.rb b/activerecord/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/sqlite3_adapter.rb
index 7d940fe1c9078b26fd8edd9ea015ceb81e64727e..16306a78cfecafefcda4f5ebbd1d12506d452352 100644
--- a/activerecord/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/sqlite3_adapter.rb
+++ b/activerecord/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/sqlite3_adapter.rb
@@ -17,12 +17,14 @@ def sqlite3_connection(config)
       # Allow database path relative to Rails.root, but only if
       # the database path is not the special path that tells
       # Sqlite to build a database only in memory.
-      if defined?(Rails.root) && ':memory:' != config[:database]
-        config[:database] = File.expand_path(config[:database], Rails.root)
+      if ':memory:' != config[:database]
+        config[:database] = Pathname.new(config[:database])
+        config[:database] = config[:database].expand_path(Rails.root) if defined?(Rails.root)
+        config[:database].dirname.mkdir unless config[:database].dirname.directory?
       end
 
       db = SQLite3::Database.new(
-        config[:database],
+        config[:database].to_s,
         :results_as_hash => true
       )
 
diff --git a/activerecord/test/cases/adapters/sqlite3/sqlite3_create_folder_test.rb b/activerecord/test/cases/adapters/sqlite3/sqlite3_create_folder_test.rb
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..5a4fe6358035f40fc06cf94a42dc750050cdf18a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/activerecord/test/cases/adapters/sqlite3/sqlite3_create_folder_test.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+# encoding: utf-8
+require "cases/helper"
+require 'models/owner'
+
+module ActiveRecord
+  module ConnectionAdapters
+    class SQLite3CreateFolder < ActiveRecord::TestCase
+      def test_sqlite_creates_directory
+        Dir.mktmpdir do |dir|
+          dir = Pathname.new(dir)
+          @conn = Base.sqlite3_connection :database => dir.join("db/foo.sqlite3"),
+                               :adapter => 'sqlite3',
+                               :timeout => 100
+
+          assert Dir.exists? dir.join('db')
+          assert File.exist? dir.join('db/foo.sqlite3')
+        end
+      end
+    end
+  end
+end