By analogy with the Riemann zeta function at positive integers, for each finite field ކ p r with fixed characteristic p, we consider Carlitz zeta values ζ r (n) at positive integers n. Our theorem asserts that among the zeta values in the set ∞ r =1 {ζ r (1), ζ r (2), ζ r (3), . . . }, all the algebraic relations are those relations within each individual family {ζ r (1), ζ r (2), ζ r (3), . . . }. These are the algebraic relations coming from the Euler-Carlitz and Frobenius relations. To prove this, a motivic method for extracting algebraic independence results from systems of Frobenius difference equations is developed.