We present results based on a Baade-Wesselink analysis of Cepheids in the Small Magellanic Cloud .
The Baade-Wesselink analysis provides individual luminosities for these metal-poor Cepheids which combined with recent Baade-Wesselink results from Gieren et al .
( 1998 ) on solar metallicity Galactic Cepheids constrain the metallicity effect on the zero-point of the Cepheid P-L relation .
A preliminary analysis leads to an effect of \Delta \mbox { $M _ { V } $ } / \Delta { \mbox { [ Fe / H ] } } = -0.45 \pm 0.15 , metal-rich Cepheids being brighter , in good agreement with several recent independent determinations .
An effect of this magnitude reduces significantly the current disagreement between the long and the short distance estimates to the LMC , and favors a shorter value .