The by-election to fill the seat left vacant by former prime minister Helen Clark, who held it for 27 years, takes place on June 13. Nominations close on May 19.
Ms Lee is New Zealand's first Korean MP and is a former journalist and businesswoman.
Sixty party delegates, meeting at Mt Albert Bridge Club, took about an hour and 15 minutes to select her ahead of the only other party nominee, Ravi Musuku, who stood for National in 2005 and last year.
For a new MP Ms Lee has a relatively high profile having worked for 15 years as a TV presenter and producer on TVNZ Asia Dynamic and Asia Down Under.
National thinks it has a chance of taking the seat off Labour and the Greens co-leader, list MP Russel Norman and ACT list MP John Boscawen are also contesting it.
In last year's election Miss Clark held the seat with a healthy 10,000-plus majority but the party vote difference of 2426 was tighter.
The party vote indicated there were many more Mt Albert voters who preferred National to Labour as a party than those who were prepared to support its candidate.
National's candidate, Mr Musuku, came second with 9806 votes, 28.8 percent of those cast compared with Miss Clark's 59.2 percent.
The seat's outcome will not affect National's majority in the house but losing it would be blow for Labour leader Phil Goff who is new in the job. Labour's candidate David Shearer previously worked as an adviser to Mr Goff when he was Foreign Minister. He has previously stood for the party and his most recent job was working in Iraq as a senior UN official.
National will strongly contest the seat but failure would not see the party lose face in such a traditional Labour stronghold.
Prime Minister John Key says his candidate is the underdog but has the best chance in years of taking the seat.
