  Very high quality light curves are now available for thousands of detached
eclipsing binary stars and transiting exoplanet systems as a result of surveys
for transiting exoplanets and other large-scale photometric surveys. I have
developed a binary star model (ELLC) that can be used to analyse the light
curves of detached eclipsing binary stars and transiting exoplanet systems that
is fast and accurate, and that can include the effects of star spots, Doppler
boosting and light-travel time within binaries with eccentric orbits. The model
represents the stars as triaxial ellipsoids. The apparent flux from the binary
is calculated using Gauss-Legendre integration over the ellipses that are the
projection of these ellipsoids on the sky. The model can also be used to
calculate the flux-weighted radial velocity of the stars during an eclipse
(Rossiter-McLaughlin effect). The main features of the model have been tested
by comparison to observed data and other light curve models. The model is found
to be accurate enough to analyse the very high quality photometry that is now
available from space-spaced instruments, flexible enough to model a wide range
of eclipsing binary stars and extrasolar planetary systems, and fast enough to
enable the use of modern Monte Carlo methods for data analysis and model
testing.
