diff --git a/lib/big-xml.js b/lib/big-xml.js
index 88d1789..07472fa 100644
--- a/lib/big-xml.js
+++ b/lib/big-xml.js
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ function BigXmlReader(filename, recordRegEx, options) {
   options.gzip = options.gzip || false;
   
   var parser = new expat.Parser('UTF-8');
-  var stream = fs.createReadStream(filename);
+  var stream = typeof filename === "string" ? fs.createReadStream(filename) : filename;
   
   if (options.gzip) {
     var gunzip = zlib.createGunzip();