A wireless receiver and method employs a forward/backward recursive covariance based filter coefficient generation scheme for equalizing a received wireless signal, such as a CDMA signal or other suitable signal. A forward/backward recursive covariance based filter coefficient generating circuit (206) includes a forward recursion portion (300) that receives data representing channel estimates (18) of a communication channel, and data representing an auto-covariance matrix (22). The forward recursion portion (300) produces a set of output values (306) from each iteration stage (400a 400n) of the forward recursion portion (300). The set of output values (306) are stored and a backward recursion portion (302) obtains the set of output values (306) and also receives the data representing the auto-covariance matrix (22), and generates filter coefficients (208) based on this information.