diff --git a/avatar/readme.md b/avatar/readme.md
index c78d622e..5502ac82 100644
--- a/avatar/readme.md
+++ b/avatar/readme.md
@@ -3,6 +3,9 @@
 avatar is a small service that fetches your pretty Bluesky avatar and caches it on Cloudflare.
 It uses a shared secret `AVATAR_SHARED_SECRET` to ensure requests only originate from the trusted appview.
 
+Set `PLC_DIRECTORY_URL` to resolve DIDs somewhere other than <https://plc.directory>,
+which a self-hosted network needs.
+
 It's deployed using `wrangler` like so:
 
 ```
diff --git a/avatar/src/index.js b/avatar/src/index.js
index ad13f764..0b6fb3f8 100644
--- a/avatar/src/index.js
+++ b/avatar/src/index.js
@@ -19,17 +19,27 @@ const handleResolver = new CompositeHandleResolver({
   },
 });
 
-const didDocumentResolver = new CompositeDidDocumentResolver({
-  methods: {
-    plc: new PlcDidDocumentResolver(),
-    web: new WebDidDocumentResolver(),
-  },
-});
-
-const actorResolver = new LocalActorResolver({
-  handleResolver,
-  didDocumentResolver,
-});
+// env only reaches us inside fetch, so the resolver is built on the first
+// request and kept after that
+let actorResolver;
+let resolverApiUrl;
+
+const getActorResolver = (env) => {
+  const apiUrl = env.PLC_DIRECTORY_URL || undefined;
+  if (!actorResolver || resolverApiUrl !== apiUrl) {
+    resolverApiUrl = apiUrl;
+    actorResolver = new LocalActorResolver({
+      handleResolver,
+      didDocumentResolver: new CompositeDidDocumentResolver({
+        methods: {
+          plc: new PlcDidDocumentResolver(apiUrl ? { apiUrl } : {}),
+          web: new WebDidDocumentResolver(),
+        },
+      }),
+    });
+  }
+  return actorResolver;
+};
 
 export default {
   async fetch(request, env) {
@@ -51,7 +61,7 @@ export default {
     const getTangledAvatarFromPDS = async (actor) => {
       try {
         // Resolve the identity
-        const identity = await actorResolver.resolve(actor);
+        const identity = await getActorResolver(env).resolve(actor);
         if (!identity) {
           console.log({
             level: "debug",