diff --git a/keyvalues.go b/keyvalues.go
index 7feb766..e289e6e 100644
--- a/keyvalues.go
+++ b/keyvalues.go
@@ -490,6 +490,20 @@ func hasSubKeys(v interface{}, subkeys map[string]interface{}) bool {
 	return false
 }
 
+// Per: https://github.com/clbanning/mxj/issues/37#issuecomment-278651862
+var subkeySep string = ":"
+
+func SetSubkeyFieldSeparator(s ...string) {
+	switch {
+	case len(s) == 0:
+		subkeySep = ":" // the default
+	case s[0] == "":
+		subkeySep = ":" // the default
+	default:
+		subkeySep = s[0]
+	}
+}
+
 // Generate map of key:value entries as map[string]string.
 //	'kv' arguments are "name:value" pairs: attribute keys are designated with prepended hyphen, '-'.
 //	If len(kv) == 0, the return is (nil, nil).
@@ -499,12 +513,12 @@ func getSubKeyMap(kv ...string) (map[string]interface{}, error) {
 	}
 	m := make(map[string]interface{}, 0)
 	for _, v := range kv {
-		vv := strings.Split(v, ":")
+		vv := strings.Split(v, subkeySep)
 		switch len(vv) {
 		case 2:
 			m[vv[0]] = interface{}(vv[1])
 		case 3:
-			switch vv[3] {
+			switch vv[2] {
 			case "string", "char", "text":
 				m[vv[0]] = interface{}(vv[1])
 			case "bool", "boolean":
diff --git a/keyvalues2_test.go b/keyvalues2_test.go
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fb6c632
--- /dev/null
+++ b/keyvalues2_test.go
@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+package mxj
+
+import (
+	"fmt"
+	"testing"
+)
+
+func TestSetSubkeyFieldSeparator(t *testing.T) {
+	PrependAttrWithHyphen(true)
+
+	fmt.Println("----------- TestSetSubkeyFieldSeparator")
+	data := `
+		<doc>
+			<elem attr="1">value 1</elem>
+			<elem attr="2">value 2</elem>
+			<elem attr="3">value 3</elem>
+		</doc>`
+
+	m, err := NewMapXml([]byte(data))
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatal(err)
+	}
+	vals, err := m.ValuesForKey("elem", "-attr:2:text")
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatal(err)
+	}
+	if len(vals) != 1 {
+		t.Fatal(":len(vals);", len(vals), vals)
+	}
+	if vals[0].(map[string]interface{})["#text"].(string) != "value 2" {
+		t.Fatal(":expecting: value 2; got:", vals[0].(map[string]interface{})["#text"])
+	}
+
+	SetSubkeyFieldSeparator("|")
+	defer SetSubkeyFieldSeparator()
+	vals, err = m.ValuesForKey("elem", "-attr|2|text")
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatal(err)
+	}
+	if len(vals) != 1 {
+		t.Fatal("|len(vals);", len(vals), vals)
+	}
+	if vals[0].(map[string]interface{})["#text"].(string) != "value 2" {
+		t.Fatal("|expecting: value 2; got:", vals[0].(map[string]interface{})["#text"])
+	}
+}
+