  We propose a new version of the Baade--Becker--Wesselink technique, which
allows one to independently determine the colour excess and the intrinsic
colour of a radially pulsating star, in addition to its radius, luminosity, and
distance. It is considered to be a generalization of the Balona approach. The
method also allows the function F(CI) = BC + 10 log (Teff) for the class of
pulsating stars considered to be calibrated. We apply this technique to a
number of classical Cepheids with very accurate light and radial-velocity
curves and with bona fide membership in open clusters (SZ Tau, CF Cas, U Sgr,
DL Cas, GY Sge), and find the results to agree well with the reddening
estimates of the host open clusters. The new technique can also be applied to
other pulsating variables, e.g. RR Lyrae and RV Tauri.
