In an extraordinary display of confidence, the 21-year-old eased up and coasted across the line in the semi-final of the showcase Olympic event after looking around to check his rivals were behind him.
Despite appearing to take it easy, his time of 9.85 was sixth hundredths of a second faster than main rival Asafa Powell.
The fellow Jamaican and former world record holder won the other semi-final in a race that knocked out American Tyson Gay.
The world champion has been nursing a hamstring injury coming into the Olympics and could not deliver the sub-10 second time needed to progress to the final, finishing fifth behind Powell.
"I don't have any excuses. I'm pretty upset," Gay told reporters, adding that he felt himself "tightening" during the race.
Bolt had two hours to rest for the final and his display will have left his rivals in no doubt they must produce a spectacular sprint to prevent the 100 meters newcomer from sweeping to victory in the world's most watched running race.
Global attention will be firmly on the Bird's Nest stadium for the race at 10.30pm (1430 GMT) in front of a crowd of more than 90,000 people in the Chinese capital.
Bolt's fellow sprinters have been put in the shade by the tall, laidback Jamaican's performances since he began racing the 100 meters in the last year.
Formerly a 200m specialist, Bolt hopes to be the first man to win the 100m and 200m Olympic double since Carl Lewis in 1984.
Jamaicans will be glued to their television sets. Despite a tradition of producing world class sprinters, the Caribbean island has yet to win a men's 100m gold at the Olympics.
Audiences in America will have to wait nine hours longer than the rest of the world to see the race. U.S. network NBC will delay the broadcast until prime-time to maximize revenue after paying nearly $900 million for rights to televise the Games.
PHELPS PHENOMENEN
Michael Phelps earlier equaled fellow American swimmer Mark Spitz's 1972 record of seven golds in one Olympics on Saturday after coming from behind for a fingertip victory.
Trailing Serbia's Milorad Cavic in the 100 meters butterfly, he lunged forward on his final stroke to touch a hundredth of a second ahead, the smallest margin possible.
Phelps, the sporting phenomenon of the Beijing 2008 Games, punched the air and screamed with joy as a capacity crowd in the Water Cube rose to hail him.
"It's pretty cool, that's all I can say," said Phelps, who thought halfway he had blown it. "I am in a sort of dream world."
On Sunday, Phelps can go one better than Spitz if he wins an eighth Beijing gold in the 100 medley relay.
"He can be called the best Olympian of all time," Spitz told America's NBC television, "not because he has more gold medals than anybody but in the way he's handled himself and in the way he's actually won under a tremendous amount of pressure."
Phelps now has 13 career golds, four more than anyone else in the 112-year history of the modern Games.
Phelps clocked 50.58 seconds to Cavic's 50.59, close enough for Serbian officials to protest but swimming's governing body FINA confirmed the result.
Phelps's success is down to total focus and the perfect swimmer's physique of large torso and huge reach on short legs. His arm span is 3 inches more than his 6ft 4 height.
MEDALS FOR OTHERS
The only surprise was that Phelps did not win in world record time, unlike his other six title-winning swims in Beijing.
The women, though, were in record breaking form.
Zimbabwe's Kirsty Coventry, who had won three silvers already in Beijing, finally struck gold in the women's 200 backstroke, bringing some rare cheer to her troubled homeland.
She shaved 0.85 seconds off the previous world best.
"I'm so excited I can hear my national anthem play, I'm so proud, it'll be exciting back home," said Coventry.
Britain's Rebecca Adlington also smashed a 19-year-old world record to take gold in the women's 800 freestyle.
She had won Britain's first Olympic women's swimming title in nearly half a century in the 400 freestyle on Monday.
Then Brazilian Cesar Cielo Filho won the men's 50m freestyle to give his country their first Olympic swimming gold.
But the Games have had some low moments as well.
Sweden's greco-roman wrestler Ara Abrahamian was stripped of his 84kg-category bronze medal after he threw it down in disgust to protest a refereeing decision. Olympic organizers also threw him out of the Games for his medal ceremony protest.
China's gold medal charge paused on Saturday, with only one badminton gold coming the way of the host nation as attention switched to sports where the Asian nation does less well. In all, 27 golds are up for grabs on Saturday.
Australia picked up two gold rowing medals but lost to Britain in a thrilling sprint for the line in the men's four. Two more medals came Britain's way in the cycling.
China came second to the United States in the medal table in Athens and would dearly like to win this year to showcase a sporting superpower status to mirror a growing economic clout.
Currently China leads the gold medal table with 27 to the United States' 16.
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