diff --git a/hystrix-core/src/main/java/com/netflix/hystrix/AbstractCommand.java b/hystrix-core/src/main/java/com/netflix/hystrix/AbstractCommand.java
index ff39f6f48..14adca461 100644
--- a/hystrix-core/src/main/java/com/netflix/hystrix/AbstractCommand.java
+++ b/hystrix-core/src/main/java/com/netflix/hystrix/AbstractCommand.java
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@
 import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicInteger;
 import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicReference;
 
+import com.netflix.hystrix.exception.HystrixTimeoutException;
 import org.slf4j.Logger;
 import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
 
@@ -601,7 +602,7 @@ public Observable<R> call(Throwable t) {
                     threadPool.markThreadRejection();
                     // use a fallback instead (or throw exception if not implemented)
                     return getFallbackOrThrowException(HystrixEventType.THREAD_POOL_REJECTED, FailureType.REJECTED_THREAD_EXECUTION, "could not be queued for execution", e);
-                } else if (t instanceof HystrixObservableTimeoutOperator.HystrixTimeoutException) {
+                } else if (t instanceof HystrixTimeoutException) {
                     /**
                      * Timeout handling
                      *
@@ -945,12 +946,6 @@ public HystrixObservableTimeoutOperator(final AbstractCommand<R> originalCommand
             this.originalCommand = originalCommand;
         }
 
-        public static class HystrixTimeoutException extends Exception {
-
-            private static final long serialVersionUID = 7460860948388895401L;
-
-        }
-
         @Override
         public Subscriber<? super R> call(final Subscriber<? super R> child) {
             final CompositeSubscription s = new CompositeSubscription();
diff --git a/hystrix-core/src/main/java/com/netflix/hystrix/exception/HystrixTimeoutException.java b/hystrix-core/src/main/java/com/netflix/hystrix/exception/HystrixTimeoutException.java
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..dee41eb50
--- /dev/null
+++ b/hystrix-core/src/main/java/com/netflix/hystrix/exception/HystrixTimeoutException.java
@@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
+/**
+ * Copyright 2015 Netflix, Inc.
+ *
+ * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+ * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+ * You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+package com.netflix.hystrix.exception;
+
+import com.netflix.hystrix.HystrixCommand;
+import com.netflix.hystrix.HystrixObservableCommand;
+
+/**
+ * An exception representing an error where the provided execution method took longer than the Hystrix timeout.
+ * <p>
+ * Hystrix will trigger an exception of this type if it times out an execution.  This class is public, so
+ * user-defined execution methods ({@link HystrixCommand#run()} / {@link HystrixObservableCommand#construct()) may also
+ * throw this error.  If you want some types of failures to be counted as timeouts, you may wrap those failures in
+ * a HystrixTimeoutException.  See https://github.com/Netflix/Hystrix/issues/920 for more discussion.
+ */
+public class HystrixTimeoutException extends Exception {
+
+    private static final long serialVersionUID = -5085623652043595962L;
+
+}
+