  Spectroscopic measurements of the helium atom are performed to high precision
using an atomic beam apparatus and electro-optic laser techniques. These
measurements, in addition to serving as a test of helium theory, also provide a
new determination of the fine structure constant {\alpha}. An apparatus was
designed and built to overcome limitations encountered in a previous
experiment. Not only did this allow an improved level of precision but also
enabled new consistency checks, including an extremely useful measurement in
3He. I discuss the details of the experimental setup along with the major
changes and improvements. A new value for the J = 0 to 2 fine structure
interval in the 23P state of 4He is measured to be 31 908 131.25(30) kHz. The
300 Hz precision of this result represents an improvement over previous results
by more than a factor of three. Combined with the latest theoretical
calculations, this yields a new determination of {\alpha} with better than 5
ppb uncertainty, {\alpha}-1 = 137.035 999 55(64).
