The invention discloses a method for separating iron and zinc in the traditional zinc iron and zinc process. The method comprises the following steps: zinc calcine is reduced and roasted under low reducing atmosphere to ensure that zinc ferrite in zinc calcine is decomposed to obtain zinc oxide and magnetic ferroferric oxide, the reduced calcine is leached with weak acid to dissolve out zinc and separate iron and zinc; and after the zinc leaching residue is fined, iron concentrate is recycled through weak magnetic separation. The method has low energy consumption and simple technological process; and by adopting the method, the iron-removing problem in the conventional zinc wet smelting process can be solved, the associated iron resource can be efficiently recovered in the zinc wet smelting process and the environmental pollutions and iron resource wastes caused by the stocking of a lot of iron slag can be reduced.