diff --git a/test/syscalls/linux/socket_inet_loopback.cc b/test/syscalls/linux/socket_inet_loopback.cc
index 08348f1c2..56e2974bc 100644
--- a/test/syscalls/linux/socket_inet_loopback.cc
+++ b/test/syscalls/linux/socket_inet_loopback.cc
@@ -1571,7 +1571,13 @@ TEST_P(SocketInetLoopbackTest, TCPDeferAcceptTimeout) {
 
   // Verify that there is no acceptable connection before TCP_DEFER_ACCEPT
   // timeout is hit.
+  const auto start = absl::Now();
   absl::SleepFor(absl::Seconds(kTCPDeferAccept - 1));
+  // It's possible that we ended up sleeping for longer than the
+  // TCP_DEFER_ACCEPT timeout. If this happens, skip this test.
+  if (absl::Now() >= start + absl::Seconds(kTCPDeferAccept)) {
+    GTEST_SKIP();
+  }
   ASSERT_THAT(accept(listen_fd.get(), nullptr, nullptr),
               SyscallFailsWithErrno(EWOULDBLOCK));