A general procedure for simplifying chemical kinetics is developed, based on the dynamical systems approach. In contrast to conventional reduced mechanisms no information is required concerning which-reactions are to be assumed to be in partial equilibrium nor which species are assumed to be in steady state. The only "inputs" to the procedure are the detailed kinetics mechanism and the number of degrees of freedom required in the simplified scheme. (Four degrees of freedom corresponds to a four-step mechanism. etc.) The state properties given by the simplified scheme are automatically determined as functions of the coordinates associated with the degrees of freedom. Results are presented for the CO/H-2/air system. These show that the method provides accurate results even in regimes (e.g., at low temperatures) where conventional mechanisms fail.