A lighting system (30) adapted for use with a rolling shutter imagers. The system uniquely provides synchronous operation of a light source (114) in the context of an imager (103) with a "rolling-shutter" -type exposure architecture. The preferred embodiment comprises a lamp such as a LED (114), a drive circuit (112) coupled to the lamp capable of energizing the lamp for switching the lamp on and off, and a lamp control circuit (110) coupled to the drive circuit with a means for receiving a timing signal (201) from an imaging system (20), the lamp control circuit synchronously energizing the lamp with the timing signal via the drive circuit, the timing signal being a line timing signal for a PWM system based on a multiple of lines, a signal indicating a pause in the imager readout, or a signal indicating a portion of the imager readout time when the lamp may safely be flashed on without corrupting the desired active imager lines.
