diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index 3a57a62ac..724aa3680 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -77,6 +77,14 @@ endif ()
 
 #-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 # Add supplemental compiler warnings, and GCC visibility support.
+# include export header modules so that we can easily control symbol exporting
+# VTK-m is setup by default not to export symbols unless explicitly stated.
+# We prefer to only export symbols of a small set of user facing classes,
+# rather than exporting all symbols. In practice we will try to not export
+# symbols for any third party library
+set(CMAKE_CXX_VISIBILITY_PRESET hidden)
+set(CMAKE_VISIBILITY_INLINES_HIDDEN 1)
+include(GenerateExportHeader)
 include(CMake/VTKmCompilerExtras.cmake)
 
 #-----------------------------------------------------------------------------