diff --git a/src/ng/compile.js b/src/ng/compile.js
index 2aec8fcd07bb..2dd0e6ea9699 100644
--- a/src/ng/compile.js
+++ b/src/ng/compile.js
@@ -153,7 +153,7 @@ function $CompileProvider($provide) {
       Suffix = 'Directive',
       COMMENT_DIRECTIVE_REGEXP = /^\s*directive\:\s*([\d\w\-_]+)\s+(.*)$/,
       CLASS_DIRECTIVE_REGEXP = /(([\d\w\-_]+)(?:\:([^;]+))?;?)/,
-      aHrefSanitizationWhitelist = /^\s*(https?|ftp|mailto|file):/,
+      aHrefSanitizationWhitelist = /^\s*(https?|ftp|mailto|tel|file):/,
       imgSrcSanitizationWhitelist = /^\s*(https?|ftp|file):|data:image\//;
 
   // Ref: http://developers.whatwg.org/webappapis.html#event-handler-idl-attributes