diff --git a/pandas/io/sql.py b/pandas/io/sql.py
index 721a2c1f350ee..799d1e88260f2 100644
--- a/pandas/io/sql.py
+++ b/pandas/io/sql.py
@@ -309,8 +309,8 @@ def read_sql_table(table_name, con, schema=None, index_col=None,
     schema : string, default None
         Name of SQL schema in database to query (if database flavor
         supports this). If None, use default schema (default).
-    index_col : string, optional, default: None
-        Column to set as index
+    index_col : string or list of strings, optional, default: None
+        Column(s) to set as index(MultiIndex)
     coerce_float : boolean, default True
         Attempt to convert values to non-string, non-numeric objects (like
         decimal.Decimal) to floating point. Can result in loss of Precision.
@@ -384,8 +384,8 @@ def read_sql_query(sql, con, index_col=None, coerce_float=True, params=None,
         Using SQLAlchemy makes it possible to use any DB supported by that
         library.
         If a DBAPI2 object, only sqlite3 is supported.
-    index_col : string, optional, default: None
-        Column name to use as index for the returned DataFrame object.
+    index_col : string or list of strings, optional, default: None
+        Column(s) to set as index(MultiIndex)
     coerce_float : boolean, default True
         Attempt to convert values to non-string, non-numeric objects (like
         decimal.Decimal) to floating point, useful for SQL result sets
@@ -443,8 +443,8 @@ def read_sql(sql, con, index_col=None, coerce_float=True, params=None,
         Using SQLAlchemy makes it possible to use any DB supported by that
         library.
         If a DBAPI2 object, only sqlite3 is supported.
-    index_col : string, optional, default: None
-        column name to use as index for the returned DataFrame object.
+    index_col : string or list of strings, optional, default: None
+        Column(s) to set as index(MultiIndex)
     coerce_float : boolean, default True
         Attempt to convert values to non-string, non-numeric objects (like
         decimal.Decimal) to floating point, useful for SQL result sets