A global positioning system (GPS) receiver and method are provided for compensating for Doppler variation to accurately detect GPS signals in an environment in which intensities of the GPS signals received from GPS satellites are very low. A user acceleration measuring unit measures an acceleration vector of the terminal with respect to a center of the Earth. A user Doppler variation rate estimator estimates a user Doppler variation rate of each GPS satellite due to acceleration of the terminal by making use of the measured acceleration vector. A Doppler predictor predicts a Doppler frequency according to the estimated user Doppler variation rate. Code and carrier frequency signal generators compensate codes and carriers of GPS satellites to be correlated with signals received therefrom by making use of the predicted Doppler frequency.