diff --git a/MANIFEST.in b/MANIFEST.in
index 04348222f..be82928a1 100644
--- a/MANIFEST.in
+++ b/MANIFEST.in
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 include CMakeLists.txt
 include LICENSE
 include schemas.xml
+include pyproject.toml
 include openmc/data/reconstruct.pyx
 include docs/source/_templates/layout.html
 include docs/sphinxext/LICENSE
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..d5970617a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+[build-system]
+requires = ["setuptools", "wheel", "numpy", "cython"]
diff --git a/tools/ci/travis-install.sh b/tools/ci/travis-install.sh
index 1f80453ad..5ad238169 100755
--- a/tools/ci/travis-install.sh
+++ b/tools/ci/travis-install.sh
@@ -7,10 +7,6 @@ set -ex
 # Upgrade pip before doing anything else
 pip install --upgrade pip
 
-# Running OpenMC's setup.py requires numpy/cython already
-pip install numpy
-pip install cython
-
 # pytest installed by default -- make sure we get latest
 pip install --upgrade pytest