diff --git a/arch/nios2/include/asm/cache.h b/arch/nios2/include/asm/cache.h
index c78f34308b..2cc16e4a12 100644
--- a/arch/nios2/include/asm/cache.h
+++ b/arch/nios2/include/asm/cache.h
@@ -27,4 +27,15 @@
 extern void flush_dcache (unsigned long start, unsigned long size);
 extern void flush_icache (unsigned long start, unsigned long size);
 
+/*
+ * Valid L1 data cache line sizes for the NIOS2 architecture are 4, 16, and 32
+ * bytes.  If the board configuration has not specified one we default to the
+ * largest of these values for alignment of DMA buffers.
+ */
+#ifdef CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE
+#define ARCH_DMA_MINALIGN	CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE
+#else
+#define ARCH_DMA_MINALIGN	32
+#endif
+
 #endif /* __ASM_NIOS2_CACHE_H_ */