2-hydroxy-N'-(1-(pyridin-2-yl)ethylidene)benzohydrazide (HPEBH )is found to be a selective and sensitive reagent for the determination of Cd(II) in food, water and synthetic samples. HPEBH forms green colored complex (Cd- HPEBH) with Cd(II) in aqueous DMF at pH 6.0 shows maximum absorbance at 358nm, whereas ligand shows at 310nm.. It is observed that the color development is immediate and stable for more than 48 hrs. Beer’s law is obeyed in the range of 1.12-11.2 μg mL-1 of Cd(II), with a correlation coefficient 0.9993. The molar absorptivity (ε) and Sandell’s sensitivity of the complex are 6.66×104 L.mol-1.cm-1and 0.028 μg mL-1 respectively. The metal to reagent ratio is found to be 1:1 by the method of Job’s and mole ratio methods. The optimized method has been successfully applied for the determination of Cd (II) in food, water and synthetic samples in presence of diverse ions. It is also observed that the obtained results are in good agreement with AAS method. The proposed method is fairly sensitive and reproducible.