Kinetic methods are now accepted as standard analytical procedure for various types of samples. A simple, rapid and sensitive kinetic method has been proposed for estimation of antihypertensive drug Atenolol in sulphuric acid medium by cerium(IV).The kinetics of the indicator reaction was monitored spectrophotometrically by measuring the decrease in absorbance of cerium(IV) at 360nm.Oxidation of atenolol by Cerium(IV) has been found to follow pseudo first order kinetics. The oxidation rate increases with the increase in acid concentration and decrease with complexing bisulphate ions. The fixed time and fixed absorbance methods have been utilized for constructing calibration graphs to determine the concentration of drug in simulated samples the method has been successfully applied for the determination of atenolol in pharmaceutical formulations.