A broadband wireless access communication system in which a subscriber station (SS) sends a serving base station (SBS) a handover request to neighbor base stations (NBSs) having a CINR satisfying a handover condition, in response to a handover scan request message, and performs the handover to a particular NBS that transmits a handover response. The SBS transmits the handover scan request message to the SS, sends a handover connection request to NBSs in an order determined by CINRs reported from the SS, and sends, to the SS, information on a particular NBS upon receiving a handover connection response with ACK information from the particular NBS. The particular NBS determines whether it can support handover of the SS, in response to the handover connection request, and sends the handover connection response with the ACK information to the SBS, if it can support handover of the SS.