An investigation was carried out in sesame to assess the variability, heritability and genetic advance for six characters viz., days to 50% flowering, plant height, number of branches per plant, number of capsules per plant, test weight and seed yield in eight genotypes. The analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the genotypes for all the characters indicating the presence of considerable amount of genetic variability in the varieties studied. Phenotypic coefficient of variation values ranged from 4.00% for days to 50% flowering to 24.92% for number of branches per plant whereas genotypic coefficient of variation ranged from 2.82% for plant height to 19.15% for number of branches per plant. The difference between PCV and GCV was high for seed yield, number of branches per plant and number of capsules per plant indicating the influence of environment on these characters. The estimates of heritability and expected genetic advance as percent of mean is high for number of branches per plant indicating that this character is less influenced by environment and governed by additive gene action which may be exploited through breeding methods involving simple selection.