diff --git a/easybuild/easyblocks/generic/configuremake.py b/easybuild/easyblocks/generic/configuremake.py
index b8a057c24d..a208462f74 100644
--- a/easybuild/easyblocks/generic/configuremake.py
+++ b/easybuild/easyblocks/generic/configuremake.py
@@ -65,6 +65,7 @@
 DEFAULT_CONFIGURE_CMD = './configure'
 DEFAULT_BUILD_CMD = 'make'
 DEFAULT_INSTALL_CMD = 'make install'
+DEFAULT_BUILD_TARGET = ''
 
 
 def check_config_guess(config_guess):
@@ -175,6 +176,7 @@ def extra_options(extra_vars=None):
         extra_vars = EasyBlock.extra_options(extra=extra_vars)
         extra_vars.update({
             'build_cmd': [DEFAULT_BUILD_CMD, "Build command to use", CUSTOM],
+            'build_targets': [DEFAULT_BUILD_TARGET, "Target name (string) or list of target names to build", CUSTOM],
             'build_type': [None, "Value to provide to --build option of configure script, e.g., x86_64-pc-linux-gnu "
                                  "(determined by config.guess shipped with EasyBuild if None,"
                                  " False implies to leave it up to the configure script)", CUSTOM],
@@ -320,14 +322,21 @@ def build_step(self, verbose=False, path=None):
         if self.cfg['parallel']:
             paracmd = "-j %s" % self.cfg['parallel']
 
-        cmd = ' '.join([
-            self.cfg['prebuildopts'],
-            self.cfg.get('build_cmd') or DEFAULT_BUILD_CMD,
-            paracmd,
-            self.cfg['buildopts'],
-        ])
-
-        (out, _) = run_cmd(cmd, path=path, log_all=True, simple=False, log_output=verbose)
+        targets = self.cfg['build_targets'] or DEFAULT_BUILD_TARGET
+        # ensure strings are converted to list
+        targets = [targets] if isinstance(targets, str) else targets
+
+        for target in targets:
+            cmd = ' '.join([
+                self.cfg['prebuildopts'],
+                self.cfg.get('build_cmd') or DEFAULT_BUILD_CMD,
+                target,
+                paracmd,
+                self.cfg['buildopts'],
+            ])
+            self.log.info("Building target '%s'", target)
+
+            (out, _) = run_cmd(cmd, path=path, log_all=True, simple=False, log_output=verbose)
 
         return out