diff --git a/src/AxisArrays.jl b/src/AxisArrays.jl
index 01a7548..a61fba5 100644
--- a/src/AxisArrays.jl
+++ b/src/AxisArrays.jl
@@ -17,5 +17,6 @@ include("search.jl")
 include("indexing.jl")
 include("sortedvector.jl")
 include("combine.jl")
+include("broadcast.jl")
 
 end
diff --git a/src/broadcast.jl b/src/broadcast.jl
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..75038a1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/broadcast.jl
@@ -0,0 +1,84 @@
+# Basic Broadcasting support
+# 
+# Notes
+# -----
+# There are a couple ways to go about this
+# 1. Redefine broadcast completely and delegate broadcasting to data fields of AxisArrays
+# 2. Work with the AbstractArray framework. This would require defining methods for functions like
+# 2a. broadcast_indices
+# 2b. broadcast_shape
+# 2c. containertype
+#
+# The second approach might be more general, but it would not handle
+# broadcasting of arrays like A(i1, i2, i3) and B(i2, i1), where the indices
+# might be in another order. 
+#
+# Reshape does not result in additional allocations, but permutting the dimensions will.
+#
+# Implementing pairwise is easier, but potentially slower for large numbers of arguments
+#
+# Issues
+# ------
+#  broadcasting only works when an axis array is the first argument
+#  element type promotion is not done in output_axisarray
+
+# This is a good fallback for simple function application
+function Base.broadcast(f::Function, x::AxisArray) 
+    AxisArray(broadcast(f, x.data), x.axes)
+end
+
+
+# This alias is useful
+typealias Axes{N,Name,T} NTuple{N, Axis{Name, T}}
+
+"""
+coerce2axes(A, axes)
+
+Create data array with singleton dimensions and permuted dimensions to match
+a set of axes.
+
+This is useful for broadcasting
+"""
+coerce2axes(A, axes) = A
+
+function coerce2axes(A::AxisArray, axes)
+
+    # TODO add compatibility check
+
+    # permutation
+    # put dimensions in same order as axes
+    toaxes  = [findin(axes, (ax,))[1] for ax in A.axes]
+    perm  = sortperm(toaxes)
+
+    # resize
+    new_shape = map(i-> in(i, toaxes) ? length(axes[i]) : 1, 1:length(axes))
+
+    reshape(permutedims(A.data, perm), new_shape)
+end
+
+
+
+# This is the most general method of the broadcast! function
+function Base.broadcast!(f, C::AxisArray, As...)
+    # axes = union(As...)
+    As_data = [coerce2axes(A, C.axes) for A in As]
+    broadcast!(f, C.data, As_data...)
+    C
+end
+
+# dispatch on first argument
+axisarray_union(Bs...) = axisarray_union(filter(B->isa(B, AxisArray), Bs))
+axisarray_union(Bs::AxisArray...) = tuple(union([B.axes for B in Bs]...)...)
+to_shape(axes::Axes) = map(ax-> length(ax), axes)
+
+function output_axisarray(Bs...)
+    axes = axisarray_union(Bs...)
+
+    # TODO need to handle types adequately
+    data = zeros(to_shape(axes)...)
+    AxisArray(data, axes)
+end
+
+
+Base.broadcast(f, A::AxisArray, Bs...) =
+    broadcast!(f, output_axisarray(A, Bs...), A, Bs...)
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/test/broadcast.jl b/test/broadcast.jl
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..adf34dd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/broadcast.jl
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+## tests
+
+x_ax = Axis{:x}(collect(1:10))
+y_ax = Axis{:y}(collect(1:15))
+z_ax = Axis{:z}(collect(1:13))
+
+A = AxisArray(rand(10, 15, 13), (x_ax, y_ax, z_ax))
+B = AxisArray(rand(10), (x_ax, ))
+C = AxisArray(rand(15), (y_ax, ))
+D = AxisArray(rand(13, 10), (z_ax, x_ax))
+
+@test size(AxisArrays.coerce2axes(D, A.axes)) == (10, 1, 13)
+
+@test isa(exp.(A), AxisArray)
+@test isa(broadcast(+, B, C), AxisArray)
+@test isa(broadcast(+, A, C), AxisArray)
+@test isa(broadcast(+, C, A), AxisArray)
+@test isa(D .+ C, AxisArray)
+@test_approx_eq (B.+C).data  (B.data .+ C.data') 
diff --git a/test/runtests.jl b/test/runtests.jl
index 1167722..63cd408 100644
--- a/test/runtests.jl
+++ b/test/runtests.jl
@@ -11,5 +11,6 @@ include("search.jl")
 include("combine.jl")
 
 include("readme.jl")
+include("broadcast.jl")
 
 nothing