Sugar cane bagasse is produced in Brazil as waste of the sugar and ethanol industries. This lignocellulosic material is a potential source for second-generation ethanol production; however a pretreatment stage is essential, which aims at removing the hemicellulose component by disorganizing the lignocellulosic complex. In this work sugar cane bagasse was pretreated by diluted acid hydrolysis resulting in xylose-rich hydrolysates, which could be fermented to ethanol by a strain of the yeast Pichia stipitis. Statistical approach was used to investigate the effects of factors associated with the diluted acid hydrolysis process (acid concentration, solid:liquid ratio and time of exposure) on the fermentability of different hydrolysates. The statistical analysis was useful for determining the effects of the individual factors and their interactions on the response variables. An acid concentration of 1.09% (v/v), a solid:liquid ratio of 1:2.8 (g:ml), and an exposure time of 27 min were established and validated as the optimum pretreatment conditions for ethanol production from hemicellulose hydrolysates of sugar cane bagasse. Under these conditions, a hydrolysate with 50 g/l of xylose, 6.04 g/l of acetic acid, 0.55 g/l of hydroxylmethylfurfural and 0.09 g/l of furfural was obtained and its fermentation yielded roughly 20 g/l of ethanol in 40 hrs.