diff --git a/core/includes/install.core.inc b/core/includes/install.core.inc
index 4a37bc2..e566624 100644
--- a/core/includes/install.core.inc
+++ b/core/includes/install.core.inc
@@ -1164,7 +1164,21 @@ function install_select_profile(&$install_state) {
 }
 
 /**
- * Selects an installation profile from a list or from a $_POST submission.
+ * Selects an installation profile.
+ *
+ * A profile will be selected if there is only one available profile
+ * or if a profile was provided in the $_POST submission.
+ * or if one of the profiles has the exclusive property set to TRUE.
+ * If more than one profile is set to "exclusive"
+ * then no profile will be selected.
+ *
+ * @param array $profiles
+ *   An associative array of profiles where the keys equal the machine-readable
+ *   names of the profiles.
+ *
+ * @return
+ *   Either the machine-readable name of the selected profile
+ *   or no value returned.
  */
 function _install_select_profile($profiles) {
   // Don't need to choose profile if only one available.
@@ -1175,6 +1189,25 @@ function _install_select_profile($profiles) {
   elseif (!empty($_POST['profile']) && isset($profiles[$_POST['profile']])) {
     return $profiles[$_POST['profile']]->name;
   }
+  else {
+    // Check for a profile marked "exclusive" and ensure that only one profile
+    // is marked as such.
+    $exclusive_profile = NULL;
+    foreach ($profiles as $profile) {
+      $profile_info = install_profile_info($profile->name);
+      if (!empty($profile_info['exclusive'])) {
+        if (empty($exclusive_profile)) {
+          $exclusive_profile = $profile->name;
+        }
+        else {
+          // We found a second profile set as "exclusive".
+          // There's no way to choose between them, so we ignore the property.
+          return;
+        }
+      }
+    }
+    return $exclusive_profile;
+  }
 }
 
 /**
diff --git a/core/includes/install.inc b/core/includes/install.inc
index efba3c1..714a985 100644
--- a/core/includes/install.inc
+++ b/core/includes/install.inc
@@ -887,6 +887,12 @@ function drupal_check_module($module) {
  * - distribution_name: The name of the Drupal distribution that is being
  *   installed, to be shown throughout the installation process. Defaults to
  *   'Drupal'.
+ * - exclusive: If the install profile is intended to be the only eligible
+ *   choice in a distribution, setting exclusive = TRUE will auto-select it
+ *   during installation, and the install profile selection screen will be
+ *   skipped. If more than one profile is found where exclusive = TRUE then
+ *   this property will have no effect and the profile selection screen will
+ *   be shown as normal with all available profiles shown.
  *
  * Note that this function does an expensive file system scan to get info file
  * information for dependencies. If you only need information from the info