A method and apparatus for clock and data recovery that is advantageous in burst-mode systems is disclosed. This clock and data recovery method allows a) fast locking to a rapidly changed phase of the transmission clock, and b) stable tracking of a slowly changing phase of the transmission clock. Such fast locking minimizes the "guard band" between consecutive transmission bursts, while stable tracking provides reliable data tracking, resulting in the efficient use of bandwidth. A plurality of clock signals, is generated, each having a different phase. The phase of an input signal data stream is determined and a desired clock signal in the plurality that corresponds to the phase of the input data stream is selected and used to sample the input signal data stream.