diff -Naur ncurses-5.6.orig/aclocal.m4 ncurses-5.6/aclocal.m4
--- ncurses-5.6.orig/aclocal.m4	2008-03-24 23:43:52.000000000 -0700
+++ ncurses-5.6/aclocal.m4	2008-03-24 23:47:11.000000000 -0700
@@ -368,9 +368,9 @@
 
 	# defaults that we might want to override
 	: ${BUILD_CFLAGS:=''}
-	: ${BUILD_CPPFLAGS:='ifelse([$1],,,[$1])'}
+	: ${BUILD_CPPFLAGS:='${CPPFLAGS} ifelse([$1],,,[$1])'}
 	: ${BUILD_LDFLAGS:=''}
-	: ${BUILD_LIBS:='ifelse([$2],,,[$2])'}
+	: ${BUILD_LIBS:='${LIBS} ifelse([$2],,,[$2])'}
 	: ${BUILD_EXEEXT:='$x'}
 	: ${BUILD_OBJEXT:='o'}
 
diff -Naur ncurses-5.6.orig/configure ncurses-5.6/configure
--- ncurses-5.6.orig/configure	2008-03-24 23:43:53.000000000 -0700
+++ ncurses-5.6/configure	2008-03-24 23:46:54.000000000 -0700
@@ -3868,9 +3868,9 @@
 
 	# defaults that we might want to override
 	: ${BUILD_CFLAGS:=''}
-	: ${BUILD_CPPFLAGS:=''}
+	: ${BUILD_CPPFLAGS:='${CPPFLAGS} '}
 	: ${BUILD_LDFLAGS:=''}
-	: ${BUILD_LIBS:=''}
+	: ${BUILD_LIBS:='${LIBS} '}
 	: ${BUILD_EXEEXT:='$x'}
 	: ${BUILD_OBJEXT:='o'}