diff --git a/src/ChangeLog b/src/ChangeLog
index d6df87c27e5..2d20f13dced 100644
--- a/src/ChangeLog
+++ b/src/ChangeLog
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 2012-05-14  Glenn Morris  <rgm@gnu.org>
 
 	* nsterm.m (ns_init_paths): Fix typo ("libexec" not "lib-exec").
+	Put "libexec" before "bin", for the sake of init_callproc_1.
 
 2012-05-14  Paul Eggert  <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>
 
diff --git a/src/nsterm.m b/src/nsterm.m
index 9a5122e5e80..4b8b2bb4820 100644
--- a/src/nsterm.m
+++ b/src/nsterm.m
@@ -338,11 +338,18 @@ Updated by Christian Limpach (chris@nice.ch)
 /*NSLog (@"loadPath: '%@'\n", resourcePaths); */
     }
 
+  /* Normally, Emacs does not add its own bin/ directory to the PATH.
+     However, a self-contained NS build has a different layout, with
+     bin/ and libexec/ subdirectories in the directory that contains
+     Emacs.app itself.
+     We put libexec first, because init_callproc_1 uses the first
+     element to initialize exec-directory.  An alternative would be
+     for init_callproc to check for invocation-directory/libexec.  */
   if (!getenv ("EMACSPATH"))
     {
       NSArray *paths = [binDir stringsByAppendingPaths:
-                                  [NSArray arrayWithObjects: @"bin",
-                                                             @"libexec", nil]];
+                                  [NSArray arrayWithObjects: @"libexec",
+                                                             @"bin", nil]];
       NSEnumerator *pathEnum = [paths objectEnumerator];
       resourcePaths = @"";
       while (resourcePath = [pathEnum nextObject])