The detailed investigation of a sensitive and selective spectrophotometric method for the determination of trace amounts of cerium is described. The method is based on the reaction of cerium(III) with arsenazo ш in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulphate surfactant at pH 3.0 to form a blue-greenish coloured chelate absorbing maximum at 653 nm. Beer's law is obeyed over the range (5-70) µg /25 ml, with a molar absorptivity of (4.99×10 4) l.mol-1 .cm-1 and the coefficient of determination (r 2) is 0.9994, Sandell ' s sensitivity index is (28.08×10-4) µg.cm-2 , a relative error of (0.0-0.2%) and a relative standard deviation of (0.0 to +2.1)%, depending on the concentration levels in the calibration curve. The method has been applied successfully to determine cerium in sea water and some synthetic alloys.