diff --git a/package/lua/lua.mk b/package/lua/lua.mk
index 8f71fc229f..074b9adb40 100644
--- a/package/lua/lua.mk
+++ b/package/lua/lua.mk
@@ -23,6 +23,9 @@ else
 	LUA_CFLAGS += -DLUA_USE_POSIX -DLUA_USE_DLOPEN
 endif
 
+# We never want to have host-readline and host-ncurses as dependencies
+# of host-lua.
+HOST_LUA_DEPENDENCIES =
 HOST_LUA_CFLAGS = -Wall -fPIC -DLUA_USE_DLOPEN -DLUA_USE_POSIX
 HOST_LUA_MYLIBS = -ldl