For a class of sparse random matrices of the form An = (ξ i,j δ i,j ) n i,j=1 , where {ξ i,j } are i.i.d. centered sub-Gaussian random variables of unit variance, and {δ i,j } are i.i.d. Bernoulli random variables taking value 1 with probability pn, we prove that the empirical spectral distribution of An/ √ npn converges weakly to the circular law, in probability, for all pn such that pn = ω(log 2 n/n). Additionally if pn satisfies the inequality npn > exp(c √ log n) for some constant c, then the above convergence is shown to hold almost surely. The key to this is a new bound on the smallest singular value of complex shifts of real valued sparse random matrices. The circular law limit also extends to the adjacency matrix of a directed Erdős-Rényi graph with edge connectivity probability pn.MSC 2010 subject classifications: 15B52, 60B10, 60B20.