diff --git a/mlir/CMakeLists.txt b/mlir/CMakeLists.txt
--- a/mlir/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/mlir/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -112,8 +112,19 @@
 
 if(MLIR_ENABLE_BINDINGS_PYTHON)
   include(MLIRDetectPythonEnv)
+  # After CMake 3.18, we are able to limit the scope of the search to just
+  # Development.Module. Searching for Development will fail in situations where
+  # the Python libraries are not available. Unless the explicit option
+  # MLIR_BINDINGS_PYTHON_LOCK_VERSION is set, limit to just Development.Module.
+  # See https://pybind11.readthedocs.io/en/stable/compiling.html#findpython-mode
+  if(CMAKE_VERSION VERSION_LESS "3.18.0" OR MLIR_BINDINGS_PYTHON_LOCK_VERSION)
+    set(_python_development_component Development)
+  else()
+    set(_python_development_component Development.Module)
+  endif()
   find_package(Python3 ${LLVM_MINIMUM_PYTHON_VERSION}
-    COMPONENTS Interpreter Development NumPy REQUIRED)
+    COMPONENTS Interpreter ${_python_development_component} NumPy REQUIRED)
+  unset(_python_development_component)
   message(STATUS "Found python include dirs: ${Python3_INCLUDE_DIRS}")
   message(STATUS "Found python libraries: ${Python3_LIBRARIES}")
   message(STATUS "Found numpy v${Python3_NumPy_VERSION}: ${Python3_NumPy_INCLUDE_DIRS}")