diff --git a/docs/testing.rst b/docs/testing.rst
index 3ea1e9ba..eb4397a2 100644
--- a/docs/testing.rst
+++ b/docs/testing.rst
@@ -42,25 +42,32 @@ In order to test that, we add a second module (
     class FlaskrTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
 
         def setUp(self):
-            self.db = tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile()
+            self.db_fd, flaskr.DATABASE = tempfile.mkstemp()
             self.app = flaskr.app.test_client()
-            flaskr.DATABASE = self.db.name
             flaskr.init_db()
 
+        def tearDown(self):
+            os.close(self.db_fd)
+            os.unlink(flaskr.DATABASE)
+
     if __name__ == '__main__':
         unittest.main()
 
-The code in the `setUp` function creates a new test client and initializes
-a new database.  That function is called before each individual test function.
-What the test client does is give us a simple interface to the
-application.  We can trigger test requests to the application and the
-client will also keep track of cookies for us.
+The code in the :meth:`~unittest.TestCase.setUp` method creates a new test
+client and initializes a new database.  That function is called before
+each individual test function.  To delete the database after the test, we
+close the file and remove it from the filesystem in the
+:meth:`~unittest.TestCase.tearDown` method.  What the test client does is
+give us a simple interface to the application.  We can trigger test
+requests to the application and the client will also keep track of cookies
+for us.
 
 Because SQLite3 is filesystem-based we can easily use the tempfile module
-to create a temporary database and initialize it.  Just make sure that you
-keep a reference to the :class:`~tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile` around (we
-store it as `self.db` because of that) so that the garbage collector does
-not remove that object and with it the database from the filesystem.
+to create a temporary database and initialize it.  The
+:func:`~tempfile.mkstemp` function does two things for us: it returns a
+low-level file handle and a random file name, the latter we use as
+database name.  We just have to keep the `db_fd` around so that we can use
+the :func:`os.close` function to close the function.
 
 If we now run that testsuite, we should see the following output::
 
@@ -86,11 +93,14 @@ this::
     class FlaskrTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
 
         def setUp(self):
-            self.db = tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile()
+            self.db_fd, flaskr.DATABASE = tempfile.mkstemp()
             self.app = flaskr.app.test_client()
-            flaskr.DATABASE = self.db.name
             flaskr.init_db()
 
+        def tearDown(self):
+            os.close(self.db_fd)
+            os.unlink(flaskr.DATABASE)
+
         def test_empty_db(self):
             rv = self.app.get('/')
             assert 'No entries here so far' in rv.data
diff --git a/examples/flaskr/flaskr_tests.py b/examples/flaskr/flaskr_tests.py
index 4355a650..9421cca6 100644
--- a/examples/flaskr/flaskr_tests.py
+++ b/examples/flaskr/flaskr_tests.py
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
     :copyright: (c) 2010 by Armin Ronacher.
     :license: BSD, see LICENSE for more details.
 """
+import os
 import flaskr
 import unittest
 import tempfile
@@ -17,11 +18,15 @@ class FlaskrTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
 
     def setUp(self):
         """Before each test, set up a blank database"""
-        self.db = tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile()
+        self.db_fd, flaskr.DATABASE = tempfile.mkstemp()
         self.app = flaskr.app.test_client()
-        flaskr.DATABASE = self.db.name
         flaskr.init_db()
 
+    def tearDown(self):
+        """Get rid of the database again after each test."""
+        os.close(self.db_fd)
+        os.unlink(flaskr.DATABASE)
+
     def login(self, username, password):
         return self.app.post('/login', data=dict(
             username=username,
diff --git a/examples/minitwit/minitwit_tests.py b/examples/minitwit/minitwit_tests.py
index cd761aa6..10962142 100644
--- a/examples/minitwit/minitwit_tests.py
+++ b/examples/minitwit/minitwit_tests.py
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
     :copyright: (c) 2010 by Armin Ronacher.
     :license: BSD, see LICENSE for more details.
 """
+import os
 import minitwit
 import unittest
 import tempfile
@@ -17,11 +18,15 @@ class MiniTwitTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
 
     def setUp(self):
         """Before each test, set up a blank database"""
-        self.db = tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile()
+        self.db_fd, minitwit.DATABASE = tempfile.mkstemp()
         self.app = minitwit.app.test_client()
-        minitwit.DATABASE = self.db.name
         minitwit.init_db()
 
+    def tearDown(self):
+        """Get rid of the database again after each test."""
+        os.close(self.db_fd)
+        os.unlink(minitwit.DATABASE)
+
     # helper functions
 
     def register(self, username, password, password2=None, email=None):