diff --git a/lisp/ChangeLog b/lisp/ChangeLog
index 0993ffcd7a5..f91b20804ed 100644
--- a/lisp/ChangeLog
+++ b/lisp/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+2008-05-12  Stefan Monnier  <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
+
+	* emacs-lisp/cl.el (cl-set-nthcdr): Make it a defsubst so that
+	(setf (nthcdr ..) ..) doesn't require CL at runtime.
+
 2008-05-11  Carsten Dominik  <dominik@science.uva.nl>
 
 	* org/org.el (org-modules): Repair problems with loading
diff --git a/lisp/emacs-lisp/cl.el b/lisp/emacs-lisp/cl.el
index 2a179a5e1db..c03c91d76fa 100644
--- a/lisp/emacs-lisp/cl.el
+++ b/lisp/emacs-lisp/cl.el
@@ -166,7 +166,7 @@ an element already on the list.
 (defun cl-set-elt (seq n val)
   (if (listp seq) (setcar (nthcdr n seq) val) (aset seq n val)))
 
-(defun cl-set-nthcdr (n list x)
+(defsubst cl-set-nthcdr (n list x)
   (if (<= n 0) x (setcdr (nthcdr (1- n) list) x) list))
 
 (defun cl-set-buffer-substring (start end val)