To develop effective skin-lightening agents, we tested medicinal herbal extracts for their melanogenic-inhibitory activities. We isolated a sesquiterpenoid compound from the extract of Atractylodis Rhizoma Alba using the bioactivity-guided fractionation and identified it as selina-4(14),7(11)-dien-8-one (compound 1) with spectroscopic methods. Compound 1 dramatically reduced melanin synthesis of melan-a cells without any apparent cytotoxicity. Compound 1 did not inhibit cell-free tyrosinase activity but decreased tyrosinase activity in melanocytes. These effects were attributed to reduced expression of melanogenic enzymes such as tyrosinase, tyrosinase-related protein 1 (TRP-1), and tyrosinase-related protein 2 (TRP-2). These results suggest that compound 1 may be an effective skin-lightening agent that regulates expression of melanogenic enzymes.