diff --git a/cas-client-core/src/main/java/org/jasig/cas/client/util/XmlUtils.java b/cas-client-core/src/main/java/org/jasig/cas/client/util/XmlUtils.java
index 064ccd0..62abfdf 100644
--- a/cas-client-core/src/main/java/org/jasig/cas/client/util/XmlUtils.java
+++ b/cas-client-core/src/main/java/org/jasig/cas/client/util/XmlUtils.java
@@ -21,6 +21,8 @@ package org.jasig.cas.client.util;
 
 import org.apache.commons.logging.Log;
 import org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory;
+import org.w3c.dom.Document;
+import org.w3c.dom.NodeList;
 import org.xml.sax.Attributes;
 import org.xml.sax.InputSource;
 import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
@@ -28,6 +30,10 @@ import org.xml.sax.XMLReader;
 import org.xml.sax.helpers.DefaultHandler;
 import org.xml.sax.helpers.XMLReaderFactory;
 
+import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
+import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
+import javax.xml.parsers.ParserConfigurationException;
+import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.StringReader;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.List;
@@ -171,4 +177,27 @@ public final class XmlUtils {
 
         return builder.toString();
     }
+
+    /**
+     * Retrieve the child nodes from xml string, for a specific element.
+     *
+     * @param xmlAsString  the xml response
+     * @param tagName      the element to look for
+     * @return the {@link org.w3c.dom.NodeList NodeList} containing the child nodes.
+     * @throws ParserConfigurationException
+     * @throws IOException
+     * @throws SAXException
+     */
+    public static NodeList getNodeListForElements(final String xmlAsString, final String tagName)
+            throws ParserConfigurationException,
+            IOException,
+            SAXException {
+
+        final DocumentBuilder documentBuilder = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance().newDocumentBuilder();
+        final InputSource inStream = new InputSource();
+        inStream.setCharacterStream(new StringReader(xmlAsString));
+        final Document document = documentBuilder.parse(inStream);
+
+        return document.getElementsByTagName(tagName).item(0).getChildNodes();
+    }
 }
diff --git a/cas-client-core/src/main/java/org/jasig/cas/client/validation/Cas20ServiceTicketValidator.java b/cas-client-core/src/main/java/org/jasig/cas/client/validation/Cas20ServiceTicketValidator.java
index c007282..7255361 100644
--- a/cas-client-core/src/main/java/org/jasig/cas/client/validation/Cas20ServiceTicketValidator.java
+++ b/cas-client-core/src/main/java/org/jasig/cas/client/validation/Cas20ServiceTicketValidator.java
@@ -26,14 +26,10 @@ import org.jasig.cas.client.proxy.ProxyGrantingTicketStorage;
 import org.jasig.cas.client.proxy.ProxyRetriever;
 import org.jasig.cas.client.util.CommonUtils;
 import org.jasig.cas.client.util.XmlUtils;
+import org.w3c.dom.NodeList;
 
-import java.io.BufferedReader;
-import java.io.IOException;
-import java.io.StringReader;
-import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.Collections;
 import java.util.HashMap;
-import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Map;
 
 /**
@@ -115,6 +111,11 @@ public class Cas20ServiceTicketValidator extends AbstractCasProtocolUrlBasedTick
      *  <cas:attribute2>value</cas:attribute2>
      * </cas:attributes>
      * <p>
+     *
+     * Attributes look like following also parsed correctly:
+     * &lt;cas:attributes&gt;&lt;cas:attribute1&gt;value&lt;/cas:attribute1&gt;&lt;cas:attribute2&gt;value&lt;/cas:attribute2&gt;&lt;/cas:attributes&gt;
+     * <p>
+     *
      * This code is here merely for sample/demonstration purposes for those wishing to modify the CAS2 protocol.  You'll
      * probably want a more robust implementation or to use SAML 1.1
      *
@@ -122,45 +123,29 @@ public class Cas20ServiceTicketValidator extends AbstractCasProtocolUrlBasedTick
      * @return the map of attributes.
      */
     protected Map<String,Object> extractCustomAttributes(final String xml) {
-    	final int pos1 = xml.indexOf("<cas:attributes>");
-    	final int pos2 = xml.indexOf("</cas:attributes>");
-    	
-    	if (pos1 == -1) {
+
+    	if (!xml.contains("<cas:attributes>")) {
     		return Collections.emptyMap();
     	}
-    	
-    	final String attributesText = xml.substring(pos1+16, pos2);
-    	
-    	final Map<String,Object> attributes = new HashMap<String,Object>();
-    	final BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new StringReader(attributesText));
-    	
-    	String line;
-    	final List<String> attributeNames = new ArrayList<String>();
-    	try {
-	    	while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
-	    		final String trimmedLine = line.trim();
-	    		if (trimmedLine.length() > 0) {
-		    		final int leftPos = trimmedLine.indexOf(":");
-		    		final int rightPos = trimmedLine.indexOf(">");
-		    		attributeNames.add(trimmedLine.substring(leftPos+1, rightPos));
-	    		}
-	    	}
-	    	br.close();
-    	} catch (final IOException e) {
-    		//ignore
-    	}
 
-        for (final String name : attributeNames) {
-            final List<String> values = XmlUtils.getTextForElements(xml, name);
+        final Map<String, Object> attributes = new HashMap<String, Object>();
 
-            if (values.size() == 1) {
-                attributes.put(name, values.get(0));
-            } else {
-                attributes.put(name, values);
+        try {
+            NodeList nodeList = XmlUtils.getNodeListForElements(xml,"cas:attributes");
+            for (int i = 0; i < nodeList.getLength(); i++) {
+                final String nodeName = nodeList.item(i).getNodeName();
+                final int beginIndex = nodeName.indexOf(":") + 1;
+                final int endIndex = nodeList.item(i).getNodeName().length();
+
+                final String attributeName = nodeName.substring(beginIndex, endIndex); // remove the "cas:" prefix from node name
+                final Object attributeValue = nodeList.item(i).getTextContent();
+                attributes.put(attributeName, attributeValue);
             }
-    	}
-    	
-    	return attributes;
+            return attributes;
+
+        } catch (Exception e) {
+            return Collections.emptyMap();
+        }
     }
 
     /**
diff --git a/cas-client-core/src/test/java/org/jasig/cas/client/validation/Cas20ServiceTicketValidatorTests.java b/cas-client-core/src/test/java/org/jasig/cas/client/validation/Cas20ServiceTicketValidatorTests.java
index cf31da4..c250969 100644
--- a/cas-client-core/src/test/java/org/jasig/cas/client/validation/Cas20ServiceTicketValidatorTests.java
+++ b/cas-client-core/src/test/java/org/jasig/cas/client/validation/Cas20ServiceTicketValidatorTests.java
@@ -139,7 +139,7 @@ public final class Cas20ServiceTicketValidatorTests extends AbstractTicketValida
             + USERNAME
             + "</cas:user><cas:proxyGrantingTicket>"
             + PGTIOU
-            + "</cas:proxyGrantingTicket><cas:attributes>\n<cas:password>test</cas:password>\n<cas:eduPersonId>id</cas:eduPersonId>\n</cas:attributes></cas:authenticationSuccess></cas:serviceResponse>";
+            + "</cas:proxyGrantingTicket><cas:attributes><cas:password>test</cas:password><cas:eduPersonId>id</cas:eduPersonId></cas:attributes></cas:authenticationSuccess></cas:serviceResponse>";
         
         server.content = RESPONSE.getBytes(server.encoding);
         final Assertion assertion = this.ticketValidator.validate("test", "test");