Jarosite residues, which are generated in a zinc production plant by a hydrometallurgical process, contain a large amount of valuable metal components. In this study, a method was proposed for the recovery of lead, zinc and iron from the residues and simultaneous sulfur fixation through direct reduction followed by magnetic separation. The influences of the roasting temperature, roasting time and the concentration of SO₂ gas in the direct reduction process were researched in detail. Results showed that the volatilization rates of lead, zinc and sulfur were 96.97%, 99.89% and 1.09%, respectively, and the iron metallization rate was 91.97% under optimal reduction conditions; roasting temperature 1523 K for 60 min. The magnetic concentrate with the iron content of 90.59% and recovery rate of 50.87% was obtained from the optimal reduction product by grinding and magnetic separation. The optimum fineness for separation 96.56% less than 37 μm accounted with magnetic field strength 24 kA/m. The theoretical analysis was carried out by thermodynamics, X-ray powder diffraction, gas analysis and scanning electron microscopy.