A method and apparatus for selectively terminating turbo equalization is disclosed. At least two iterations of turbo equalization are performed. The number of errors corrected between the first iteration and the second iteration are calculated. In one embodiment, if the sign of corresponding bits in the data block is different between the two iterations, an error was corrected. If the number of errors corrected is greater than a stopping value, a subsequent iteration of turbo equalization is performed. If the number of errors corrected is less than or equal to the stopping value, then associated values for the data are output and the turbo equalization is terminated.