diff -urp drupal-7.x-dev-orig/cron.php drupal-7.x-dev/cron.php
--- drupal-7.x-dev-orig/cron.php	2008-05-26 17:24:42.000000000 +0000
+++ drupal-7.x-dev/cron.php	2008-08-14 10:11:12.000000000 +0000
@@ -4,12 +4,34 @@
 /**
  * @file
  * Handles incoming requests to fire off regularly-scheduled tasks (cron jobs).
+ * Takes one parameter, include or exclude, which contains a comma separated
+ * list of modules to either include or exclude from the cron run.
  */
 
 include_once './includes/bootstrap.inc';
 drupal_bootstrap(DRUPAL_BOOTSTRAP_FULL);
 if (isset($_GET['cron_key']) && variable_get('cron_key', 'drupal') == $_GET['cron_key']) {
-  drupal_cron_run();
+  $include = $_GET['include'];
+  $exclude = $_GET['exclude'];
+
+  if (isset($include) && isset($exclude)) {
+    watchdog('cron', 'Cron has been issued both the include and the exclude parameters.', array(), WATCHDOG_ERROR);
+    return false;
+  }
+  elseif (isset($include) && !isset($exclude)) {
+    $cron_param = $include;
+    $mode = 'include';
+  }
+  elseif (!isset($include) && isset($exclude)) {
+    $cron_param = $exclude;
+    $mode = 'exclude';
+  }
+  else {
+    $cron_param = '';
+    $mode = '';
+  }
+
+  drupal_cron_run($cron_param, $mode);
 }
 else {
   watchdog('cron', 'Cron did not run because an invalid key used.', array(), WATCHDOG_NOTICE);
diff -urp drupal-7.x-dev-orig/includes/common.inc drupal-7.x-dev/includes/common.inc
--- drupal-7.x-dev-orig/includes/common.inc	2008-08-13 07:10:20.000000000 +0000
+++ drupal-7.x-dev/includes/common.inc	2008-08-14 10:13:10.000000000 +0000
@@ -2534,7 +2534,7 @@ function page_set_cache() {
  * @return
  * Returns TRUE if ran successfully
  */
-function drupal_cron_run() {
+function drupal_cron_run($list, $mode, $delimiter = ',') {
   // Allow execution to continue even if the request gets canceled.
   @ignore_user_abort(TRUE);
 
@@ -2566,7 +2566,34 @@ function drupal_cron_run() {
     variable_set('cron_semaphore', time());
 
     // Iterate through the modules calling their cron handlers (if any):
-    module_invoke_all('cron');
+    if ($list == '' && $mode == '') {
+      //No parameters were passed, so we're running all modules
+      module_invoke_all('cron');
+    }
+    elseif($list != '' && $mode == 'include') {
+      $module_list = module_list();
+      $cron_modules = explode($delimiter, $list);
+      //Get only a list of modules that are specified AND enabled
+      $run_array = array_intersect($module_list, $cron_modules);
+      foreach($run_array as $run_module) {
+	module_invoke($run_module, 'cron');
+      }
+      return true;
+    }
+    elseif($list != '' && $mode == 'exclude') {
+      $module_list = module_list();
+      $cron_modules = explode($delimiter, $list);
+      //Get only a list of modules that are NOT specified but enabled
+      $run_array = array_diff($module_list, $cron_modules);
+      foreach($run_array as $run_module) {
+        module_invoke($run_module, 'cron');
+      }
+      return true;
+    }
+    else {
+      //catch anything that's not covered already.
+      return false;
+    }
 
     // Record cron time
     variable_set('cron_last', time());