diff --git a/ament_clang_tidy/ament_clang_tidy/main.py b/ament_clang_tidy/ament_clang_tidy/main.py
index c6fdbb62..1b3cdcdd 100755
--- a/ament_clang_tidy/ament_clang_tidy/main.py
+++ b/ament_clang_tidy/ament_clang_tidy/main.py
@@ -83,6 +83,10 @@ def main(argv=sys.argv[1:]):
         '--system-headers',
         action='store_true',
         help='Displays errors from all system headers')
+    parser.add_argument(
+        '--clang-tidy-version',
+        default='6.0',
+        help='The version of clang-tidy to use.')
     parser.add_argument(
         '--packages-select', nargs='*', metavar='PKG_NAME',
         help='Only process a subset of packages')
@@ -113,8 +117,9 @@ def main(argv=sys.argv[1:]):
 
     bin_names = [
         # 'clang-tidy',
-        'clang-tidy-6.0',
+        'clang-tidy-' + args.clang_tidy_version,
     ]
+
     clang_tidy_bin = find_executable(bin_names)
     if not clang_tidy_bin:
         print('Could not find %s executable' %
diff --git a/ament_clang_tidy/doc/index.rst b/ament_clang_tidy/doc/index.rst
index 81fc2fc4..4e39397b 100644
--- a/ament_clang_tidy/doc/index.rst
+++ b/ament_clang_tidy/doc/index.rst
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ have already been installed. ``compile_commands.json`` files should have already
                      [--export-fixes EXPORT_FIXES] [--fix-errors]
                      [--header-filter HEADER_FILTER] [--quiet]
                      [--system-headers] [--jobs N]
+                     [--clang-tidy-version CLANG_TIDY_VERSION]
                      [--packages-select [PKG_NAME [PKG_NAME ...]]]
                      [--xunit-file XUNIT_FILE]
                      [paths [paths ...]]
@@ -53,6 +54,9 @@ files.
 The ``--jobs`` option will control the number of clang-tidy jobs to run in
 parallel.
 
+The ``--clang-tidy-version`` enables you to set a different version of
+clang-tidy to use.
+
 The ``--packages-select`` option will filter the "compile_commands.json" files
 to just those generated by specific ROS packages.