diff --git a/ChangeLog.md b/ChangeLog.md
--- a/ChangeLog.md
+++ b/ChangeLog.md
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+## 0.1.1 - 2017-05-31
+
+ * Allow checksums to have leading spaces ([PR 8](https://github.com/snoyberg/tar-conduit/pull/8))
+
 ## 0.1.0 - 2016-11-03
 
  * Initial release
diff --git a/src/Data/Conduit/Tar.hs b/src/Data/Conduit/Tar.hs
--- a/src/Data/Conduit/Tar.hs
+++ b/src/Data/Conduit/Tar.hs
@@ -1,4 +1,6 @@
 {-# LANGUAGE BangPatterns #-}
+{-# LANGUAGE CPP #-}
+{-# LANGUAGE DeriveDataTypeable #-}
 {-| This module is about stream-processing tar archives. It is currently
 not very well tested. See the documentation of 'withEntries' for an usage sample.
 -}
@@ -33,6 +35,10 @@
 import Data.ByteString.Short (ShortByteString, toShort, fromShort)
 import Data.Monoid ((<>))
 
+#if !MIN_VERSION_base(4,8,0)
+import Control.Applicative ((<*))
+#endif
+
 data Header = Header
     { headerOffset         :: !Offset
     , headerPayloadOffset  :: !Offset
@@ -108,7 +114,7 @@
 parseHeader offset bs = assert (S.length bs == 512) $ do
     let checksumBytes = S.take 8 $ S.drop 148 bs
         expectedChecksum = parseOctal checksumBytes
-        actualChecksum = bsum bs - bsum checksumBytes + 8 * 0x20
+        actualChecksum = bsum bs - bsum checksumBytes + 8 * space
     unless (actualChecksum == expectedChecksum) (Left (BadChecksum offset))
     return Header
         { headerOffset         = offset
@@ -137,7 +143,10 @@
     parseOctal :: Integral i => ByteString -> i
     parseOctal = S.foldl' (\t c -> t * 8 + fromIntegral (c - zero)) 0
                . S.takeWhile (\c -> zero <= c && c <= seven)
+               . S.dropWhile (== space)
 
+    space :: Integral i => i
+    space = 0x20
     zero = 48
     seven = 55
 
diff --git a/tar-conduit.cabal b/tar-conduit.cabal
--- a/tar-conduit.cabal
+++ b/tar-conduit.cabal
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 name:                tar-conduit
-version:             0.1.0
+version:             0.1.1
 synopsis:            Parse tar files using conduit for streaming
 description:         Please see README.md
 homepage:            https://github.com/snoyberg/tar-conduit#readme