diff --git a/admin/settings/courses.php b/admin/settings/courses.php
index 90424358432..b373da098ee 100644
--- a/admin/settings/courses.php
+++ b/admin/settings/courses.php
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ if ($hassiteconfig
     $temp = new admin_settingpage('courserequest', get_string('courserequest'));
     $temp->add(new admin_setting_configcheckbox('enablecourserequests', get_string('enablecourserequests', 'admin'), get_string('configenablecourserequests', 'admin'), 0));
     $temp->add(new admin_settings_coursecat_select('defaultrequestcategory', get_string('defaultrequestcategory', 'admin'), get_string('configdefaultrequestcategory', 'admin'), 1));
-    $temp->add(new admin_setting_configtext('courserequestnotify', get_string('courserequestnotify', 'admin'), get_string('configcourserequestnotify', 'admin'), ''));
+    $temp->add(new admin_setting_users_with_capability('courserequestnotify', get_string('courserequestnotify', 'admin'), get_string('configcourserequestnotify2', 'admin'), array(), 'moodle/site:approvecourse'));
     $ADMIN->add('courses', $temp);
 
     // Pending course requests.
diff --git a/course/request.php b/course/request.php
index 192b64eb32e..22c45194419 100644
--- a/course/request.php
+++ b/course/request.php
@@ -68,7 +68,8 @@
 
     /// Notify the admin if required.
         if ($CFG->courserequestnotify) {
-            if ($user = get_record('user', 'username', $CFG->courserequestnotify, 'mnethostid', $CFG->mnet_localhost_id)) {
+            $users = get_users_from_config($CFG->courserequestnotify, 'moodle/site:approvecourse');
+            foreach ($users as $user) {
                 $subject = get_string('courserequest');
                 $a = new object();
                 $a->link = "$CFG->wwwroot/course/pending.php";
diff --git a/lang/en_utf8/admin.php b/lang/en_utf8/admin.php
index abe8ff03b42..5e81a75050a 100644
--- a/lang/en_utf8/admin.php
+++ b/lang/en_utf8/admin.php
@@ -81,6 +81,7 @@ $string['configcookiesecure'] = 'If server is accepting only https connections i
 $string['configcountry'] = 'If you set a country here, then this country will be selected by default on new user accounts.  To force users to choose a country, just leave this unset.';
 $string['configcoursemanager'] = 'This setting allows you to control who appears on the course description. Users need to have at least one of these roles in a course to be shown on the course description for that course.';
 $string['configcourserequestnotify'] = 'Type username of user to be notified when new course requested.';
+$string['configcourserequestnotify2'] = 'Users who will be notified when a course is requested. Only users who can approve course requests are listed here.';
 $string['configcoursesperpage'] = 'Enter the number of courses to be display per page in a course listing.';
 $string['configcreatornewroleid'] = 'This role is automatically assigned to creators in new courses they created. This role is not assigned if creator already has needed capabilities in parent context.';
 $string['configdbsessions'] = 'If enabled, this setting will use the database to store information about current sessions.  This is especially useful for large/busy sites or sites built on cluster of servers.  For most sites this should probably be left disabled so that the server disk is used instead.  Note that changing this setting now will log out all current users (including you). If you are using MySQL please make sure that \'max_allowed_packet\' in my.cnf (or my.ini) is at least 4M.';
@@ -367,6 +368,7 @@ $string['environmentxmlerror'] = 'Error reading environment data ($a->error_code
 $string['errors'] = 'Errors';
 $string['errorsetting'] = 'Could not save setting:';
 $string['errorwithsettings'] = 'Some settings were not changed due to an error.';
+$string['everyonewhocan'] = 'Everyone who can \'$a\'';
 $string['experimental'] = 'Experimental';
 $string['extendedusernamechars'] = 'Allow extended characters in usernames';
 $string['filecreated'] = 'New file created';
diff --git a/lib/adminlib.php b/lib/adminlib.php
index 1db208f5a14..7106ab72638 100644
--- a/lib/adminlib.php
+++ b/lib/adminlib.php
@@ -2417,8 +2417,9 @@ class admin_setting_configmultiselect extends admin_setting_configselect {
         }
 
         $defaults = array();
+        $size = min(10, count($this->choices));
         $return = '<div class="form-select"><input type="hidden" name="'.$this->get_full_name().'[xxxxx]" value="1" />'; // something must be submitted even if nothing selected
-        $return .= '<select id="'.$this->get_id().'" name="'.$this->get_full_name().'[]" size="10" multiple="multiple">';
+        $return .= '<select id="'.$this->get_id().'" name="'.$this->get_full_name().'[]" size="'.$size.'" multiple="multiple">';
         foreach ($this->choices as $key => $description) {
             if (in_array($key, $data)) {
                 $selected = 'selected="selected"';
@@ -2509,6 +2510,71 @@ class admin_setting_configtime extends admin_setting {
 
 }
 
+/**
+ * An admin setting for selecting one or more users, who have a particular capability
+ * in the system context. Warning, make sure the list will never be too long. There is
+ * no paging or searching of this list.
+ *
+ * To correctly get a list of users from this config setting, you need to call the
+ * get_users_from_config($CFG->mysetting, $capability); function in moodlelib.php.
+ */
+class admin_setting_users_with_capability extends admin_setting_configmultiselect {
+    protected $capability;
+
+    /**
+     * Constructor.
+     *
+     * @param string $name unique ascii name, either 'mysetting' for settings that in config, or 'myplugin/mysetting' for ones in config_plugins.
+     * @param string $visiblename localised name
+     * @param string $description localised long description
+     * @param array $defaultsetting array of usernames
+     * @param string $capability string capability name.
+     */
+    function __construct($name, $visiblename, $description, $defaultsetting, $capability) {
+        $users = get_users_by_capability(get_context_instance(CONTEXT_SYSTEM),
+                $capability, 'username,firstname,lastname', 'lastname,firstname');
+        $choices = array(
+            '$@NONE@$' => get_string('nobody'),
+            '$@ALL@$' => get_string('everyonewhocan', 'admin', get_capability_string($capability)),
+        );
+        foreach ($users as $user) {
+            $choices[$user->username] = fullname($user);
+        }
+        parent::admin_setting_configmultiselect($name, $visiblename, $description, $defaultsetting, $choices);
+    }
+
+    function get_defaultsetting() {
+        $this->load_choices();
+        if (empty($this->defaultsetting)) {
+            return array('$@NONE@$');
+        } else if (array_key_exists($this->defaultsetting, $this->choices)) {
+            return $this->defaultsetting;
+        } else {
+            return '';
+        }
+    }
+
+    function get_setting() {
+        $result = parent::get_setting();
+        if (empty($result)) {
+            $result = array('$@NONE@$');
+        }
+        return $result;
+    }
+
+    function write_setting($data) {
+        // If all is selected, remove any explicit options.
+        if (in_array('$@ALL@$', $data)) {
+            $data = array('$@ALL@$');
+        }
+        // None never needs to be writted to the DB.
+        if (in_array('$@NONE@$', $data)) {
+            unset($data[array_search('$@NONE@$', $data)]);
+        }
+        return parent::write_setting($data);
+    }
+}
+
 /**
  * Special checkbox for calendar - resets SESSION vars.
  */
diff --git a/lib/moodlelib.php b/lib/moodlelib.php
index c67d16a79e9..f71d0f35b57 100644
--- a/lib/moodlelib.php
+++ b/lib/moodlelib.php
@@ -788,6 +788,25 @@ function get_cache_flags($type, $changedsince=NULL) {
     return $cf;
 }
 
+/**
+ * Use this funciton to get a list of users from a config setting of type admin_setting_users_with_capability.
+ * @param string $value the value of the config setting. 
+ * @param string $capability the capability - must match the one passed to the admin_setting_users_with_capability constructor.
+ * @return array of user objects.
+ */
+function get_users_from_config($value, $capability) {
+    global $CFG;
+    if ($value == '$@ALL@$') {
+        $users = get_users_by_capability(get_context_instance(CONTEXT_SYSTEM), $capability);
+    } else if ($value) {
+        $usernames = explode(',', $value);
+        $users = get_records_select('user', "username IN ('" . implode("','", $usernames) . "') AND mnethostid = " . $CFG->mnet_localhost_id);
+    } else {
+        $users = array();
+    }
+    return $users;
+}
+
 /**
  * Get volatile flags
  *