diff --git a/website/source/docs/providers/google/index.html.markdown b/website/source/docs/providers/google/index.html.markdown
index 8adb9ed90..86745b8af 100644
--- a/website/source/docs/providers/google/index.html.markdown
+++ b/website/source/docs/providers/google/index.html.markdown
@@ -34,13 +34,19 @@ resource "google_compute_instance" "default" {
 
 The following keys can be used to configure the provider.
 
-* `account_file` - (Required) Path to the JSON file used to describe your
-  account credentials, downloaded from Google Cloud Console. More details on
-  retrieving this file are below.  The _account file_ can be "" if you
-  are running terraform from a GCE instance with a properly-configured [Compute
-  Engine Service Account](https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/authentication).
-  This can also be specified with the `GOOGLE_ACCOUNT_FILE` shell environment
-  variable.
+* `account_file` - (Required, unless `account_file_contents` is present) Path
+  to the JSON file used to describe your account credentials, downloaded from
+  Google Cloud Console. More details on retrieving this file are below. The
+  _account file_ can be "" if you are running terraform from a GCE instance with
+  a properly-configured [Compute Engine Service
+  Account](https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/authentication). This can also
+  be specified with the `GOOGLE_ACCOUNT_FILE` shell environment variable.
+
+* `account_file_contents` - (Required, unless `account_file` is present) The
+  contents of `account_file`. This can be used to pass the account credentials
+  with a Terraform var or environment variable if the account file is not
+  accessible. This can also be specified with the `GOOGLE_ACCOUNT_FILE_CONTENTS`
+  shell environment variable.
 
 * `project` - (Required) The ID of the project to apply any resources to.  This
   can also be specified with the `GOOGLE_PROJECT` shell environment variable.