I think mentioning that you can export CFLAGS and LDFLAGS would be particularly useful.  I was able to compile some of the missing packages that were deemed 'missing' at the end of 'make' by updating setup.py and having CFLAGS and LDFLAGS point to the desired packages' directories...  Unfortunately for linux, the ability to specify *multiple* lib/ and include/ paths using this method is currently not available unless you modify setup.py.  I opened a ticket in relation to this: Issue13511 if anyone cares.