diff --git a/docs/api-guide/serializers.md b/docs/api-guide/serializers.md
index c10a3f448..50505d30d 100644
--- a/docs/api-guide/serializers.md
+++ b/docs/api-guide/serializers.md
@@ -76,7 +76,28 @@ Deserialization is similar.  First we parse a stream into python native datatype
 
 When deserializing data, you always need to call `is_valid()` before attempting to access the deserialized object.  If any validation errors occur, the `.errors` and `.non_field_errors` properties will contain the resulting error messages.
 
-**TODO: Describe validation in more depth**
+### Field-level validation
+
+You can specify custom field-level validation by adding `validate_<fieldname>()` methods to your `Serializer` subclass. These are analagous to `clean_<fieldname>` methods on Django forms, but accept slightly different arguments. They take a dictionary of deserialized attributes as a first argument, and the field name in that dictionary as a second argument (which will be either the name of the field or the value of the `source` argument to the field, if one was provided). Your `validate_<fieldname>` methods should either just return the attrs dictionary or raise a `ValidationError`. For example:
+
+    from rest_framework import serializers
+
+    class BlogPostSerializer(serializers.Serializer):
+        title = serializers.CharField(max_length=100)
+        content = serializers.CharField()
+
+        def validate_title(self, attrs, source):
+            """
+            Check that the blog post is about Django
+            """
+            value = attrs[source]
+            if "Django" not in value:
+                raise serializers.ValidationError("Blog post is not about Django")
+            return attrs
+
+### Final cross-field validation
+
+To do any other validation that requires access to multiple fields, add a method called `validate` to your `Serializer` subclass. This method takes a single argument, which is the `attrs` dictionary. It should raise a `ValidationError` if necessary, or just return `attrs`.
 
 ## Dealing with nested objects
 
diff --git a/rest_framework/serializers.py b/rest_framework/serializers.py
index 221cbf2fc..c9f025bcb 100644
--- a/rest_framework/serializers.py
+++ b/rest_framework/serializers.py
@@ -208,6 +208,34 @@ class BaseSerializer(Field):
 
         return reverted_data
 
+    def perform_validation(self, attrs):
+        """
+        Run `validate_<fieldname>()` and `validate()` methods on the serializer
+        """
+        fields = self.get_fields(serialize=False, data=attrs, nested=self.opts.nested)
+
+        for field_name, field in fields.items():
+            try:
+                validate_method = getattr(self, 'validate_%s' % field_name, None)
+                if validate_method:
+                    source = field.source or field_name
+                    attrs = validate_method(attrs, source)
+            except ValidationError as err:
+                self._errors[field_name] = self._errors.get(field_name, []) + list(err.messages)
+
+        try:
+            attrs = self.validate(attrs)
+        except ValidationError as err:
+            self._errors['non_field_errors'] = err.messages
+
+        return attrs
+
+    def validate(self, attrs):
+        """
+        Stub method, to be overridden in Serializer subclasses
+        """
+        return attrs
+
     def restore_object(self, attrs, instance=None):
         """
         Deserialize a dictionary of attributes into an object instance.
@@ -241,8 +269,9 @@ class BaseSerializer(Field):
         self._errors = {}
         if data is not None:
             attrs = self.restore_fields(data)
+            attrs = self.perform_validation(attrs)
         else:
-            self._errors['non_field_errors'] = 'No input provided'
+            self._errors['non_field_errors'] = ['No input provided']
 
         if not self._errors:
             return self.restore_object(attrs, instance=getattr(self, 'object', None))
diff --git a/rest_framework/tests/serializer.py b/rest_framework/tests/serializer.py
index c614b66a0..936f15aa6 100644
--- a/rest_framework/tests/serializer.py
+++ b/rest_framework/tests/serializer.py
@@ -138,6 +138,55 @@ class ValidationTests(TestCase):
         self.assertEquals(serializer.is_valid(), True)
         self.assertEquals(serializer.errors, {})
 
+    def test_field_validation(self):
+
+        class CommentSerializerWithFieldValidator(CommentSerializer):
+
+            def validate_content(self, attrs, source):
+                value = attrs[source]
+                if "test" not in value:
+                    raise serializers.ValidationError("Test not in value")
+                return attrs
+
+        data = {
+            'email': 'tom@example.com',
+            'content': 'A test comment',
+            'created': datetime.datetime(2012, 1, 1)
+        }
+
+        serializer = CommentSerializerWithFieldValidator(data)
+        self.assertTrue(serializer.is_valid())
+
+        data['content'] = 'This should not validate'
+
+        serializer = CommentSerializerWithFieldValidator(data)
+        self.assertFalse(serializer.is_valid())
+        self.assertEquals(serializer.errors, {'content': [u'Test not in value']})
+
+    def test_cross_field_validation(self):
+
+        class CommentSerializerWithCrossFieldValidator(CommentSerializer):
+
+            def validate(self, attrs):
+                if attrs["email"] not in attrs["content"]:
+                    raise serializers.ValidationError("Email address not in content")
+                return attrs
+
+        data = {
+            'email': 'tom@example.com',
+            'content': 'A comment from tom@example.com',
+            'created': datetime.datetime(2012, 1, 1)
+        }
+
+        serializer = CommentSerializerWithCrossFieldValidator(data)
+        self.assertTrue(serializer.is_valid())
+
+        data['content'] = 'A comment from foo@bar.com'
+
+        serializer = CommentSerializerWithCrossFieldValidator(data)
+        self.assertFalse(serializer.is_valid())
+        self.assertEquals(serializer.errors, {'non_field_errors': [u'Email address not in content']})
+
 
 class MetadataTests(TestCase):
     def test_empty(self):