diff --git a/scrapy/contrib_exp/iterators.py b/scrapy/contrib_exp/iterators.py
index d42a25c3f..0f3a8c694 100644
--- a/scrapy/contrib_exp/iterators.py
+++ b/scrapy/contrib_exp/iterators.py
@@ -7,14 +7,14 @@ def xmliter_lxml(obj, nodename, namespace=None):
     reader = _StreamReader(obj)
     tag = '{%s}%s' % (namespace, nodename) if namespace else nodename
     iterable = etree.iterparse(reader, tag=tag, encoding=reader.encoding)
+    selxpath = '//' + ('x:%s' % nodename if namespace else nodename)
     for _, node in iterable:
         nodetext = etree.tostring(node)
         node.clear()
         xs = XmlXPathSelector(text=nodetext)
         if namespace:
             xs.register_namespace('x', namespace)
-            nodename = 'x:%s' % nodename
-        yield xs.select('//' + nodename)[0]
+        yield xs.select(selxpath)[0]
 
 
 class _StreamReader(object):
diff --git a/scrapy/tests/test_utils_iterators.py b/scrapy/tests/test_utils_iterators.py
index 79435d615..06fb4effe 100644
--- a/scrapy/tests/test_utils_iterators.py
+++ b/scrapy/tests/test_utils_iterators.py
@@ -110,6 +110,7 @@ class LxmlXmliterTestCase(XmliterTestCase):
                     <description>This is item 1</description>
                     <link>http://www.mydummycompany.com/items/1</link>
                     <image_link>http://www.mydummycompany.com/images/item1.jpg</image_link>
+                    <image_link>http://www.mydummycompany.com/images/item2.jpg</image_link>
                 </item>
                 </channel>
             </rss>
@@ -122,6 +123,8 @@ class LxmlXmliterTestCase(XmliterTestCase):
         namespace_iter = self.xmliter(response, 'image_link', 'http://base.google.com/ns/1.0')
         node = namespace_iter.next()
         self.assertEqual(node.select('text()').extract(), ['http://www.mydummycompany.com/images/item1.jpg'])
+        node = namespace_iter.next()
+        self.assertEqual(node.select('text()').extract(), ['http://www.mydummycompany.com/images/item2.jpg'])
 
 
 class UtilsCsvTestCase(unittest.TestCase):