diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 675a063c64ea..e27ac90c55a3 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -27,7 +27,8 @@ deploy:
     repo: GoogleCloudPlatform/gcloud-python
     # until this is fixed: https://github.com/travis-ci/travis-ci/issues/1675
     all_branches: true
-  distributions: "sdist bdist_wheel"
+  # 'bdist_wheel' builds disabled until #1879 et al. are resolved.
+  distributions: "sdist"
 
 cache:
   directories:
diff --git a/setup.cfg b/setup.cfg
index 1a5473d09c3d..4a38504c6476 100644
--- a/setup.cfg
+++ b/setup.cfg
@@ -1,5 +1,2 @@
 [nosetests]
 exclude-dir = system_tests
-
-[bdist_wheel]
-universal = 1