The 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid was directly given from the starting material 3,4-dimethoxyphenylacetic acid. Methyl 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetate was obtained by reacting 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid with SOCl2 in methanol。It is the first time that the important natural product hydroxytyrosol was obtained by using sodium/ethanol reduction which on the basis of the Bouveault-Blanc classic reaction and the resulting product was characterized by 1H NMR，IR and MS。A novel synthetic method for hydroxytyrosol was provided. In addition, the influences of the molar ratio of methyl 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetate to sodium，the reaction time，the reaction temperature on the yield of hydroxytyrosol were investigated。The mechanism for the reductive reaction of methyl 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetate with sodium/reduction was discussed.