diff --git a/test/mod_wsgi_test/mod_wsgi_test.wsgi b/test/mod_wsgi_test/mod_wsgi_test.wsgi
index 74aca931b..80045bb4b 100644
--- a/test/mod_wsgi_test/mod_wsgi_test.wsgi
+++ b/test/mod_wsgi_test/mod_wsgi_test.wsgi
@@ -57,4 +57,4 @@ def application(environ, start_response):
         sys.version, mod_wsgi_version, pymongo.version)
     response_headers = [('Content-Length', str(len(output)))]
     start_response('200 OK', response_headers)
-    return [output]
+    return [output.encode('ascii')]