diff --git a/README b/README
index a9f830b..3c6a189 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ in a per-file, merged output.
 
 It also adds a few features:
 
-- files that starts with this header are skipped::
+- files that contains with this header are skipped::
 
     # flake8: noqa
 
diff --git a/flake8/util.py b/flake8/util.py
index 42f15d8..86db8ce 100644
--- a/flake8/util.py
+++ b/flake8/util.py
@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ def skip_line(line):
     return line.strip().lower().endswith('# noqa')
 
 
-_NOQA = re.compile(r'^# flake8: noqa', re.I | re.M)
+_NOQA = re.compile(r'flake8[:=]\s*noqa', re.I | re.M)
 
 
 def skip_file(path):