diff --git a/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/rdd/RDD.scala b/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/rdd/RDD.scala
index 717247ba2fc4d..9f8cbe9e8da96 100644
--- a/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/rdd/RDD.scala
+++ b/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/rdd/RDD.scala
@@ -38,10 +38,12 @@ import org.apache.spark.partial.CountEvaluator
 import org.apache.spark.partial.GroupedCountEvaluator
 import org.apache.spark.partial.PartialResult
 import org.apache.spark.storage.StorageLevel
-import org.apache.spark.util.{Utils, BoundedPriorityQueue}
+import org.apache.spark.util.{RDDiterable, Utils, BoundedPriorityQueue}
 
 import org.apache.spark.SparkContext._
 import org.apache.spark._
+import scala.concurrent.duration.Duration
+import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit
 
 /**
  * A Resilient Distributed Dataset (RDD), the basic abstraction in Spark. Represents an immutable,
@@ -574,6 +576,8 @@ abstract class RDD[T: ClassManifest](
     sc.runJob(this, (iter: Iterator[T]) => f(iter))
   }
 
+
+
   /**
    * Return an array that contains all of the elements in this RDD.
    */
@@ -594,6 +598,17 @@ abstract class RDD[T: ClassManifest](
     filter(f.isDefinedAt).map(f)
   }
 
+  /**
+   * Return iterable that lazily fetches partitions
+   * @param prefetchPartitions How many partitions to prefetch. Larger value increases parallelism but also increases
+   *                              driver memory requirement
+   * @param timeOut how long to wait for each partition fetch
+   * @return Iterable of every element in this RDD
+   */
+  def toIterable(prefetchPartitions: Int = 1, timeOut: Duration = Duration(30, TimeUnit.SECONDS)) = {
+    new RDDiterable[T](this, prefetchPartitions, timeOut)
+  }
+
   /**
    * Return an RDD with the elements from `this` that are not in `other`.
    *
diff --git a/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/util/RDDiterable.scala b/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/util/RDDiterable.scala
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..320c8d69d133a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/util/RDDiterable.scala
@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+package org.apache.spark.util
+
+import scala.collection.immutable.Queue
+import scala.concurrent.{Await, Future}
+import scala.collection.mutable.ArrayBuffer
+import scala.concurrent.duration.Duration
+import scala.annotation.tailrec
+import org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD
+
+/**Iterable whose iterator iterates over all elements of an RDD without fetching all partitions to the driver process
+ *
+ * @param rdd RDD to iterate
+ * @param prefetchPartitions    The number of partitions to prefetch
+ * @param timeOut How long to wait for each partition before failing.
+ * @tparam T
+ */
+class RDDiterable[T: ClassManifest](rdd: RDD[T], prefetchPartitions: Int, timeOut: Duration) extends Serializable with Iterable[T] {
+
+  def iterator = new Iterator[T] {
+    var partitions = Range(0, rdd.partitions.size)
+    var pendingFetches = Queue.empty.enqueue(partitions.take(prefetchPartitions).map(par => fetchData(par)))
+    partitions = partitions.drop(prefetchPartitions)
+    var currentIterator: Iterator[T] = Iterator.empty
+    @tailrec
+    def hasNext() = {
+      if (currentIterator.hasNext) {
+        true
+      } else {
+        pendingFetches = partitions.headOption.map {
+          partitionNo =>
+            pendingFetches.enqueue(fetchData(partitionNo))
+        }.getOrElse(pendingFetches)
+        partitions = partitions.drop(1)
+
+        if (pendingFetches.isEmpty) {
+          currentIterator = Iterator.empty
+          false
+        } else {
+          val (future, pendingFetchesN) = pendingFetches.dequeue
+          pendingFetches = pendingFetchesN
+          currentIterator = Await.result(future, timeOut).iterator
+          this.hasNext()
+        }
+      }
+    }
+    def next() = {
+      hasNext()
+      currentIterator.next()
+    }
+  }
+  private def fetchData(partitionIndex: Int): Future[Seq[T]] = {
+    val results = new ArrayBuffer[T]()
+    rdd.context.submitJob[T, Array[T], Seq[T]](rdd,
+      x => x.toArray,
+      List(partitionIndex),
+      (inx: Int, res: Array[T]) => results.appendAll(res),
+      results.toSeq)
+  }
+}
diff --git a/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/rdd/RDDSuite.scala b/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/rdd/RDDSuite.scala
index 354ab8ae5d7d5..7525b37ec6cc5 100644
--- a/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/rdd/RDDSuite.scala
+++ b/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/rdd/RDDSuite.scala
@@ -340,6 +340,26 @@ class RDDSuite extends FunSuite with SharedSparkContext {
     for (i <- 0 until sample.size) assert(sample(i) === checkSample(i))
   }
 
+  test("toIterable") {
+    var nums = sc.makeRDD(Range(1, 1000), 100)
+    assert(nums.toIterable(prefetchPartitions = 10).size === 999)
+    assert(nums.toIterable().toArray === (1 to 999).toArray)
+
+    nums = sc.makeRDD(Range(1000, 1, -1), 100)
+    assert(nums.toIterable(prefetchPartitions = 10).size === 999)
+    assert(nums.toIterable(prefetchPartitions = 10).toArray === Range(1000, 1, -1).toArray)
+
+    nums = sc.makeRDD(Range(1, 100), 1000)
+    assert(nums.toIterable(prefetchPartitions = 10).size === 99)
+    assert(nums.toIterable(prefetchPartitions = 10).toArray === Range(1, 100).toArray)
+
+    nums = sc.makeRDD(Range(1, 1000), 100)
+    assert(nums.toIterable(prefetchPartitions = -1).size === 999)
+    assert(nums.toIterable().toArray === (1 to 999).toArray)
+  }
+
+
+
   test("take") {
     var nums = sc.makeRDD(Range(1, 1000), 1)
     assert(nums.take(0).size === 0)