diff --git a/pkgs/applications/misc/vp/default.nix b/pkgs/applications/misc/vp/default.nix
index c40df820b33d..e794b82e2f6e 100644
--- a/pkgs/applications/misc/vp/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/applications/misc/vp/default.nix
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-{ stdenv, fetchFromGitHub, autoconf, automake, SDL, SDL_image }:
+{ stdenv, fetchFromGitHub, autoreconfHook, SDL, SDL_image }:
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
   name = "vp-${version}";
@@ -11,11 +11,11 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
     sha256 = "08q6xrxsyj6vj0sz59nix9isqz84gw3x9hym63lz6v8fpacvykdq";
   };
 
-  buildInputs = [ SDL autoconf automake SDL_image ];
+  nativeBuildInputs = [ autoreconfHook ];
 
-  preConfigure = ''
-    autoreconf -i
-  '';
+  buildInputs = [ SDL SDL_image ];
+
+  NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE="-I${SDL}/include/SDL -I${SDL_image}/include/SDL";
 
   meta = with stdenv.lib; {
     homepage = http://brlcad.org/~erik/;