We present initial results from the M33 Metallicity Project .
Out of the thousands of cataloged H ii regions in M33 , only \sim 30 have electron-temperature based abundances in the literature .
We have obtained Keck spectroscopy of a sample of \sim 200 H ii regions in M33 , with 61 detections of the [ O iii ] \lambda 4363 Å line that can be used for determining electron temperatures , including measurements at small galactocentric radii where auroral lines are generally difficult to detect .
We find an oxygen abundance gradient of -0.027 \pm 0.012 dex kpc ^ { -1 } , in agreement with infrared measurements of the neon abundance gradient but much shallower than most previous oxygen gradient measurements .
There is substantial intrinsic scatter of 0.11 dex in the metallicity at any given radius in M33 , which imposes a fundamental limit on the accuracy of gradient measurements that rely on small samples of objects .
Finally , we present a two-dimensional map of oxygen abundances across the southern half of M33 and discuss the evidence for deviations from axisymmetry .