diff --git a/nb-api/pom.xml b/nb-api/pom.xml
index b3e5d4891..4ea2a44e5 100644
--- a/nb-api/pom.xml
+++ b/nb-api/pom.xml
@@ -64,6 +64,16 @@
             <artifactId>oshi-core</artifactId>
         </dependency>
 
+        <dependency>
+            <groupId>com.amazonaws</groupId>
+            <artifactId>aws-java-sdk-s3</artifactId>
+            <version>1.12.12</version>
+        </dependency>
+        <dependency>
+            <groupId>javax.xml.bind</groupId>
+            <artifactId>jaxb-api</artifactId>
+            <version>2.4.0-b180830.0359</version>
+        </dependency>
         <!-- perf testing -->
 
         <dependency>
diff --git a/nb-api/src/main/java/io/nosqlbench/nb/addins/s3urls/S3ClientCache.java b/nb-api/src/main/java/io/nosqlbench/nb/addins/s3urls/S3ClientCache.java
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..8908c76c1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/nb-api/src/main/java/io/nosqlbench/nb/addins/s3urls/S3ClientCache.java
@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+package io.nosqlbench.nb.addins.s3urls;
+
+import com.amazonaws.auth.AWSCredentials;
+import com.amazonaws.auth.AWSStaticCredentialsProvider;
+import com.amazonaws.auth.BasicAWSCredentials;
+import com.amazonaws.services.s3.AmazonS3;
+import com.amazonaws.services.s3.AmazonS3ClientBuilder;
+
+import java.util.WeakHashMap;
+
+/**
+ * This client cache uses the credentials provided in a URL to create
+ * a fingerprint, and then creates a customized S3 client for each unique
+ * instance. If these clients are not used, they are allowed to be expired
+ * from the map and collected.
+ */
+public class S3ClientCache {
+
+    private final WeakHashMap<S3UrlFields.CredentialsFingerprint, AmazonS3> cache = new WeakHashMap<>();
+
+    public S3ClientCache() {
+    }
+
+    public AmazonS3 get(S3UrlFields fields) {
+        AmazonS3 s3 = cache.computeIfAbsent(fields.credentialsFingerprint(),
+            cfp -> createAuthorizedClient(fields));
+        return s3;
+    }
+
+    private AmazonS3 createAuthorizedClient(S3UrlFields fields) {
+        if (fields.accessKey!=null && fields.secretKey!=null) {
+            AmazonS3ClientBuilder builder = AmazonS3ClientBuilder.standard();
+            AWSCredentials specialcreds = new BasicAWSCredentials(fields.accessKey, fields.secretKey);
+            builder = builder.withCredentials(new AWSStaticCredentialsProvider(specialcreds));
+            return builder.build();
+        } else {
+            return AmazonS3ClientBuilder.defaultClient();
+        }
+    }
+
+}
diff --git a/nb-api/src/main/java/io/nosqlbench/nb/addins/s3urls/S3UrlConnection.java b/nb-api/src/main/java/io/nosqlbench/nb/addins/s3urls/S3UrlConnection.java
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..093661326
--- /dev/null
+++ b/nb-api/src/main/java/io/nosqlbench/nb/addins/s3urls/S3UrlConnection.java
@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+package io.nosqlbench.nb.addins.s3urls;
+
+import com.amazonaws.services.s3.AmazonS3;
+import com.amazonaws.services.s3.model.S3Object;
+
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.io.InputStream;
+import java.net.URL;
+import java.net.URLConnection;
+
+public class S3UrlConnection extends URLConnection {
+
+    private final S3ClientCache clientCache;
+
+    protected S3UrlConnection(S3ClientCache clientCache, URL url) {
+        super(url);
+        this.clientCache = clientCache;
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    public InputStream getInputStream() throws IOException {
+        S3UrlFields fields = new S3UrlFields(url);
+        AmazonS3 s3 = clientCache.get(fields);
+        S3Object object = s3.getObject(fields.bucket, fields.key);
+        return object.getObjectContent();
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    public void connect() throws IOException {
+    }
+}
diff --git a/nb-api/src/main/java/io/nosqlbench/nb/addins/s3urls/S3UrlFields.java b/nb-api/src/main/java/io/nosqlbench/nb/addins/s3urls/S3UrlFields.java
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e77331f4f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/nb-api/src/main/java/io/nosqlbench/nb/addins/s3urls/S3UrlFields.java
@@ -0,0 +1,85 @@
+package io.nosqlbench.nb.addins.s3urls;
+
+import java.net.URL;
+import java.net.URLDecoder;
+import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
+import java.util.Objects;
+
+public class S3UrlFields {
+
+    public final String bucket;
+    public final String key;
+    public final String secretKey;
+    public final String accessKey;
+    private final String endpoint;
+
+    public S3UrlFields(URL url) {
+
+        String accessKey = null;
+        String secretKey = null;
+
+        String userinfo = url.getUserInfo();
+        if (userinfo != null) {
+            String[] userfields = userinfo.split(":", 2);
+            accessKey = URLDecoder.decode(userfields[0], StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
+            secretKey = URLDecoder.decode(userfields[1], StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
+        } else {
+            String query = url.getQuery();
+            if (query != null) {
+                for (String qs : query.split("&")) {
+                    String[] words = qs.split(":", 2);
+                    if (words[0].equals("accessKey")) {
+                        accessKey = URLDecoder.decode(words[1], StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
+                    } else if (words[0].equals("secretKey")) {
+                        secretKey = URLDecoder.decode(words[1], StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
+                    }
+                }
+            }
+        }
+
+        // https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/access-bucket-intro.html
+
+        this.accessKey = accessKey;
+        this.secretKey = secretKey;
+
+        String[] bucketAndEndpoint = url.getHost().split("\\.", 2);
+        this.bucket = bucketAndEndpoint[0];
+        this.endpoint = (bucketAndEndpoint.length==2) ? bucketAndEndpoint[1] : "";
+        this.key = url.getPath().substring(1);
+    }
+
+    public CredentialsFingerprint credentialsFingerprint() {
+        return new CredentialsFingerprint(this);
+    }
+
+    public static class CredentialsFingerprint {
+        private final S3UrlFields fields;
+
+        public CredentialsFingerprint(S3UrlFields fields) {
+            this.fields = fields;
+        }
+
+        @Override
+        public boolean equals(Object o) {
+            if (this == o) return true;
+            if (o == null || getClass() != o.getClass()) return false;
+
+            S3UrlFields that = (S3UrlFields) o;
+
+            if (!Objects.equals(fields.secretKey, that.secretKey)) return false;
+            if (!Objects.equals(fields.accessKey, that.accessKey)) return false;
+            return Objects.equals(fields.endpoint, that.endpoint);
+        }
+
+        @Override
+        public int hashCode() {
+            int result = (fields.secretKey != null ? fields.secretKey.hashCode() : 0);
+            result = 31 * result + (fields.accessKey != null ? fields.accessKey.hashCode() : 0);
+            result = 31 * result + (fields.endpoint != null ? fields.endpoint.hashCode() : 0);
+            return result;
+        }
+
+    }
+
+
+}
diff --git a/nb-api/src/main/java/io/nosqlbench/nb/addins/s3urls/S3UrlStreamHandler.java b/nb-api/src/main/java/io/nosqlbench/nb/addins/s3urls/S3UrlStreamHandler.java
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..cc0c65d67
--- /dev/null
+++ b/nb-api/src/main/java/io/nosqlbench/nb/addins/s3urls/S3UrlStreamHandler.java
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+package io.nosqlbench.nb.addins.s3urls;
+
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.net.URL;
+import java.net.URLStreamHandler;
+
+public class S3UrlStreamHandler extends URLStreamHandler {
+
+    private final S3ClientCache clientCache;
+    private final String protocol;
+
+    public S3UrlStreamHandler(S3ClientCache clientCache, String protocol) {
+        this.clientCache = clientCache;
+        this.protocol = protocol;
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    protected S3UrlConnection openConnection(URL url) throws IOException {
+        return new S3UrlConnection(clientCache, url);
+    }
+}
diff --git a/nb-api/src/main/java/io/nosqlbench/nb/addins/s3urls/S3UrlStreamHandlerProvider.java b/nb-api/src/main/java/io/nosqlbench/nb/addins/s3urls/S3UrlStreamHandlerProvider.java
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..99f7399a9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/nb-api/src/main/java/io/nosqlbench/nb/addins/s3urls/S3UrlStreamHandlerProvider.java
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+package io.nosqlbench.nb.addins.s3urls;
+
+import io.nosqlbench.nb.annotations.Service;
+
+import java.net.URLStreamHandler;
+import java.net.spi.URLStreamHandlerProvider;
+
+@Service(value = URLStreamHandlerProvider.class, selector = "s3")
+public class S3UrlStreamHandlerProvider extends URLStreamHandlerProvider {
+
+    private final S3ClientCache clientCache = new S3ClientCache();
+
+    @Override
+    public URLStreamHandler createURLStreamHandler(String protocol) {
+        if ("s3".equals(protocol)) {
+            return new S3UrlStreamHandler(clientCache, protocol);
+        }
+        return null;
+    }
+
+}
diff --git a/nb-api/src/test/java/io/nosqlbench/nb/addins/s3urls/S3UrlStreamHandlerTest.java b/nb-api/src/test/java/io/nosqlbench/nb/addins/s3urls/S3UrlStreamHandlerTest.java
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..be9f5fcd8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/nb-api/src/test/java/io/nosqlbench/nb/addins/s3urls/S3UrlStreamHandlerTest.java
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+package io.nosqlbench.nb.addins.s3urls;
+
+import com.amazonaws.services.s3.AmazonS3;
+import com.amazonaws.services.s3.AmazonS3ClientBuilder;
+import com.amazonaws.services.s3.model.Bucket;
+import com.amazonaws.services.s3.model.PutObjectResult;
+import org.junit.jupiter.api.Disabled;
+import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
+
+import java.io.BufferedReader;
+import java.io.InputStream;
+import java.io.InputStreamReader;
+import java.net.URL;
+
+import static org.assertj.core.api.Assertions.assertThat;
+
+public class S3UrlStreamHandlerTest {
+
+    /**
+     * This test requires that you have credentials already configured on your local system
+     * for S3. It creates an object using the s3 client directly, then uses a generic
+     * URL method to access and verify the contents.
+     */
+    @Disabled
+    @Test
+    public void sanityCheckS3UrlHandler() {
+        AmazonS3 client = AmazonS3ClientBuilder.defaultClient();
+
+        String bucketName = "nb-extension-test";
+        String keyName = "key-name";
+        String testValue = "test-value";
+
+        Bucket bucket = null;
+
+        if (!client.doesBucketExistV2(bucketName)) {
+            bucket = client.createBucket(bucketName);
+        }
+        PutObjectResult putObjectResult = client.putObject(bucketName, keyName, testValue);
+        assertThat(putObjectResult).isNotNull();
+
+        try {
+            URL url = new URL("s3://"+bucketName+"/"+keyName);
+            InputStream is = url.openStream();
+            BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is));
+            String line = br.readLine();
+            assertThat(line).isEqualTo(testValue);
+            System.out.println(line);
+        } catch (Exception e) {
+            e.printStackTrace();
+        }
+    }
+
+}