A method and apparatus are disclosed for modulating a communication signal in a CDMA environment using orthogonal N by N Hadamard spread spectrum codes. Orthogonal spreading codes are used that have lengths that are not a power-of 2 to provide additional channel variability for various multimedia applications and increase the flexibility of the number of channels/bandwidth relationship. The Hadamard codes are multiples of 4 (4n) and demonstrate a good cross-correlation property, making them very useful in the flexible design of CDMA systems. A transmitter encodes each of N data streams (N not being a power of 2), to be transmitted using a 4n codeword, N.sub.i. The received signal is passed through a filter matched to the characteristics of the appropriate codeword, N.sub.i, and PN spreading sequence.