diff --git a/doc/source/joblib.rst b/doc/source/joblib.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..54b6027d0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/source/joblib.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,69 @@
+sklearn Ray Backend API (Experimental)
+=======================================
+
+.. warning::
+
+  Support for running scikit-learn on Ray is an experimental feature,
+  so it may be changed at any time without warning. If you encounter any
+  bugs/shortcomings/incompatibilities, please file an `issue on GitHub`_.
+  Contributions are always welcome!
+
+.. _`issue on GitHub`: https://github.com/ray-project/ray/issues
+
+Ray supports running distributed `scikit-learn`_ programs by 
+implementing a Ray backend for `joblib`_ using `Ray Actors <actors.html>`__ 
+instead of local processes. This makes it easy to scale existing applications
+that use scikit-learn from a single node to a cluster.
+
+.. _`joblib`: https://joblib.readthedocs.io
+.. _`scikit-learn`: https://scikit-learn.org
+
+Quickstart
+----------
+
+To get started, first `install Ray <installation.html>`__, then use 
+``from ray.experimental.joblib import register_ray`` and run ``register_ray()``.
+This will register Ray as a joblib backend for scikit-learn to use.
+Then run your original scikit-learn code inside 
+``with joblib.parallel_backend('ray')``. This will start a local Ray cluster. 
+See the `Run on a Cluster`_ section below for instructions to run on 
+a multi-node Ray cluster instead.
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+  import numpy as np
+  from sklearn.datasets import load_digits
+  from sklearn.model_selection import RandomizedSearchCV
+  from sklearn.svm import SVC
+  digits = load_digits()
+  param_space = {
+      'C': np.logspace(-6, 6, 30),
+      'gamma': np.logspace(-8, 8, 30),
+      'tol': np.logspace(-4, -1, 30),
+      'class_weight': [None, 'balanced'],
+  }
+  model = SVC(kernel='rbf')
+  search = RandomizedSearchCV(model, param_space, cv=5, n_iter=300, verbose=10)
+
+  import joblib
+  from ray.experimental.joblib import register_ray
+  register_ray()
+  with joblib.parallel_backend('ray'):
+      search.fit(digits.data, digits.target)
+
+Run on a Cluster
+----------------
+
+This section assumes that you have a running Ray cluster. To start a Ray cluster,
+please refer to the `cluster setup <cluster-index.html>`__ instructions.
+
+To connect a scikit-learn to a running Ray cluster, you have to specify the address of the
+head node by setting the ``RAY_ADDRESS`` environment variable.
+
+You can also start Ray manually by calling ``ray.init()`` (with any of its supported
+configuration options) before calling ``with joblib.parallel_backend('ray')``.
+
+.. warning::
+    
+    If you do not set the ``RAY_ADDRESS`` environment variable and do not provide
+    ``address`` in ``ray.init(address=<address>)`` then scikit-learn will run on a SINGLE node!
diff --git a/python/ray/experimental/joblib/__init__.py b/python/ray/experimental/joblib/__init__.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..275cae2ea
--- /dev/null
+++ b/python/ray/experimental/joblib/__init__.py
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+from joblib.parallel import register_parallel_backend
+
+
+def register_ray():
+    """ Register Ray Backend to be called with parallel_backend("ray"). """
+    try:
+        from ray.experimental.joblib.ray_backend import RayBackend
+        register_parallel_backend("ray", RayBackend)
+    except ImportError:
+        msg = ("To use the ray backend you must install ray."
+               "Try running 'pip install ray'."
+               "See https://ray.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation.html"
+               "for more information.")
+        raise ImportError(msg)
+
+
+__all__ = ["register_ray"]
diff --git a/python/ray/experimental/joblib/ray_backend.py b/python/ray/experimental/joblib/ray_backend.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..56c1d7878
--- /dev/null
+++ b/python/ray/experimental/joblib/ray_backend.py
@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+from joblib._parallel_backends import MultiprocessingBackend
+from joblib.pool import PicklingPool
+import logging
+
+from ray.experimental.multiprocessing.pool import Pool
+import ray
+
+RAY_ADDRESS_ENV = "RAY_ADDRESS"
+
+logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
+
+
+class RayBackend(MultiprocessingBackend):
+    """Ray backend uses ray, a system for scalable distributed computing.
+    More info about Ray is available here: https://ray.readthedocs.io.
+    """
+
+    def configure(self,
+                  n_jobs=1,
+                  parallel=None,
+                  prefer=None,
+                  require=None,
+                  **memmappingpool_args):
+        """Make Ray Pool the father class of PicklingPool. PicklingPool is a
+        father class that inherits Pool from multiprocessing.pool. The next
+        line is a patch, which changes the inheritance of Pool to be from
+        ray.experimental.multiprocessing.pool.
+        """
+        PicklingPool.__bases__ = (Pool, )
+        """Use all available resources when n_jobs == -1. Must set RAY_ADDRESS
+        variable in the environment or run ray.init(address=..) to run on
+        multiple nodes.
+        """
+        if n_jobs == -1:
+            if not ray.is_initialized():
+                import os
+                if RAY_ADDRESS_ENV in os.environ:
+                    ray_address = os.environ[RAY_ADDRESS_ENV]
+                    logger.info(
+                        "Connecting to ray cluster at address='{}'".format(
+                            ray_address))
+                    ray.init(address=ray_address)
+                else:
+                    logger.info("Starting local ray cluster")
+                    ray.init()
+            ray_cpus = int(ray.state.cluster_resources()["CPU"])
+            n_jobs = ray_cpus
+
+        eff_n_jobs = super(RayBackend, self).configure(
+            n_jobs, parallel, prefer, require, **memmappingpool_args)
+        return eff_n_jobs
+
+    def effective_n_jobs(self, n_jobs):
+        eff_n_jobs = super(RayBackend, self).effective_n_jobs(n_jobs)
+        if n_jobs == -1:
+            ray_cpus = int(ray.state.cluster_resources()["CPU"])
+            eff_n_jobs = ray_cpus
+        return eff_n_jobs
diff --git a/python/ray/tests/BUILD b/python/ray/tests/BUILD
index 94b94933c..9a1bbde6d 100644
--- a/python/ray/tests/BUILD
+++ b/python/ray/tests/BUILD
@@ -259,6 +259,14 @@ py_test(
     deps = ["//:ray_lib"],
 )
 
+py_test(
+    name = "test_joblib",
+    size = "medium",
+    srcs = ["test_joblib.py"],
+    tags = ["exclusive"],
+    deps = ["//:ray_lib"],
+)
+
 py_test(
     name = "test_multi_node_2",
     size = "medium",
diff --git a/python/ray/tests/test_joblib.py b/python/ray/tests/test_joblib.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..a5e0d972b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/python/ray/tests/test_joblib.py
@@ -0,0 +1,159 @@
+import numpy as np
+import joblib
+from sklearn.datasets import load_digits, load_iris
+from sklearn.model_selection import RandomizedSearchCV
+from time import time
+from sklearn.datasets import fetch_openml
+from sklearn.ensemble import ExtraTreesClassifier
+from sklearn.ensemble import RandomForestClassifier
+from sklearn.kernel_approximation import Nystroem
+from sklearn.kernel_approximation import RBFSampler
+from sklearn.pipeline import make_pipeline
+from sklearn.svm import LinearSVC, SVC
+from sklearn.tree import DecisionTreeClassifier
+from sklearn.utils import check_array
+from sklearn.linear_model import LogisticRegression
+from sklearn.neural_network import MLPClassifier
+from sklearn.model_selection import cross_val_score
+
+from ray.experimental.joblib import register_ray
+import ray
+
+
+def test_register_ray():
+    register_ray()
+    assert "ray" in joblib.parallel.BACKENDS
+    assert not ray.is_initialized()
+
+
+def test_ray_backend(shutdown_only):
+    register_ray()
+    from ray.experimental.joblib.ray_backend import RayBackend
+    with joblib.parallel_backend("ray"):
+        assert type(joblib.parallel.get_active_backend()[0]) == RayBackend
+
+
+def test_svm_single_node(shutdown_only):
+    digits = load_digits()
+    param_space = {
+        "C": np.logspace(-6, 6, 10),
+        "gamma": np.logspace(-8, 8, 10),
+        "tol": np.logspace(-4, -1, 3),
+        "class_weight": [None, "balanced"],
+    }
+
+    model = SVC(kernel="rbf")
+    search = RandomizedSearchCV(
+        model, param_space, cv=3, n_iter=50, verbose=10)
+    register_ray()
+    with joblib.parallel_backend("ray"):
+        search.fit(digits.data, digits.target)
+    assert ray.is_initialized()
+
+
+def test_svm_multiple_nodes(ray_start_cluster_2_nodes):
+    digits = load_digits()
+    param_space = {
+        "C": np.logspace(-6, 6, 30),
+        "gamma": np.logspace(-8, 8, 30),
+        "tol": np.logspace(-4, -1, 30),
+        "class_weight": [None, "balanced"],
+    }
+
+    model = SVC(kernel="rbf")
+    search = RandomizedSearchCV(
+        model, param_space, cv=5, n_iter=100, verbose=10)
+    register_ray()
+    with joblib.parallel_backend("ray"):
+        search.fit(digits.data, digits.target)
+    assert ray.is_initialized()
+
+
+"""This test only makes sure the different sklearn classifiers are supported
+and do not fail. It can be improved to check for accuracy similar to
+'test_cross_validation' but the classifiers need to be improved (to improve
+the accuracy), which results in longer test time.
+"""
+
+
+def test_sklearn_benchmarks(ray_start_cluster_2_nodes):
+    ESTIMATORS = {
+        "CART": DecisionTreeClassifier(),
+        "ExtraTrees": ExtraTreesClassifier(n_estimators=10),
+        "RandomForest": RandomForestClassifier(),
+        "Nystroem-SVM": make_pipeline(
+            Nystroem(gamma=0.015, n_components=1000), LinearSVC(C=1)),
+        "SampledRBF-SVM": make_pipeline(
+            RBFSampler(gamma=0.015, n_components=1000), LinearSVC(C=1)),
+        "LogisticRegression-SAG": LogisticRegression(
+            solver="sag", tol=1e-1, C=1e4),
+        "LogisticRegression-SAGA": LogisticRegression(
+            solver="saga", tol=1e-1, C=1e4),
+        "MultilayerPerceptron": MLPClassifier(
+            hidden_layer_sizes=(32, 32),
+            max_iter=100,
+            alpha=1e-4,
+            solver="sgd",
+            learning_rate_init=0.2,
+            momentum=0.9,
+            verbose=1,
+            tol=1e-2,
+            random_state=1),
+        "MLP-adam": MLPClassifier(
+            hidden_layer_sizes=(32, 32),
+            max_iter=100,
+            alpha=1e-4,
+            solver="adam",
+            learning_rate_init=0.001,
+            verbose=1,
+            tol=1e-2,
+            random_state=1)
+    }
+    # Load dataset.
+    print("Loading dataset...")
+    data = fetch_openml("mnist_784")
+    X = check_array(data["data"], dtype=np.float32, order="C")
+    y = data["target"]
+
+    # Normalize features.
+    X = X / 255
+
+    # Create train-test split.
+    print("Creating train-test split...")
+    n_train = 6000
+    X_train = X[:n_train]
+    y_train = y[:n_train]
+    register_ray()
+
+    train_time = {}
+    random_seed = 0
+    # Use two workers per classifier.
+    num_jobs = 2
+    with joblib.parallel_backend("ray"):
+        for name in sorted(ESTIMATORS.keys()):
+            print("Training %s ... " % name, end="")
+            estimator = ESTIMATORS[name]
+            estimator_params = estimator.get_params()
+            estimator.set_params(
+                **{
+                    p: random_seed
+                    for p in estimator_params if p.endswith("random_state")
+                })
+
+            if "n_jobs" in estimator_params:
+                estimator.set_params(n_jobs=num_jobs)
+            time_start = time()
+            estimator.fit(X_train, y_train)
+            train_time[name] = time() - time_start
+            print("training", name, "took", train_time[name], "seconds")
+
+
+def test_cross_validation(shutdown_only):
+    register_ray()
+    iris = load_iris()
+    clf = SVC(kernel="linear", C=1, random_state=0)
+    with joblib.parallel_backend("ray", n_jobs=5):
+        accuracy = cross_val_score(clf, iris.data, iris.target, cv=5)
+    assert len(accuracy) == 5
+    for result in accuracy:
+        assert result > 0.95