diff --git a/cogl/cogl-debug.h b/cogl/cogl-debug.h
index 901850f7b..83534c84f 100644
--- a/cogl/cogl-debug.h
+++ b/cogl/cogl-debug.h
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@
 
 #include "cogl-profile.h"
 #include "cogl-flags.h"
+#include "cogl-util.h"
 
 #include <glib.h>
 
@@ -74,7 +75,11 @@ typedef enum {
 
 #define COGL_DEBUG_N_LONGS COGL_FLAGS_N_LONGS_FOR_SIZE (COGL_DEBUG_N_FLAGS)
 
-extern unsigned long _cogl_debug_flags[COGL_DEBUG_N_LONGS];
+/* _cogl_debug_flags currently needs to exported outside of the shared
+   library for cogl-pango. The special COGL_EXPORT macro is needed to
+   get this to work when building with MSVC */
+COGL_EXPORT extern unsigned long _cogl_debug_flags[COGL_DEBUG_N_LONGS];
+
 extern GHashTable *_cogl_debug_instances;
 
 #define COGL_DEBUG_ENABLED(flag) \
diff --git a/cogl/cogl-util.h b/cogl/cogl-util.h
index 256ecaea5..04e59d02b 100644
--- a/cogl/cogl-util.h
+++ b/cogl/cogl-util.h
@@ -32,6 +32,19 @@
 #include <stdio.h>
 #endif
 
+/* When compiling with Visual Studio, symbols that represent data that
+   are exported out of the DLL need to be marked with the dllexport
+   attribute. */
+#ifdef _MSC_VER
+#ifdef COGL_BUILD_EXP
+#define COGL_EXPORT __declspec(dllexport)
+#else
+#define COGL_EXPORT __declspec(dllimport)
+#endif
+#else
+#define COGL_EXPORT
+#endif
+
 int
 _cogl_util_next_p2 (int a);