A system and method for estimating the position of wireless devices within a wireless communication network combines measured RF channel characteristics for the wireless device with one or more predicted performance lookup tables, each of which correlates an RF channel characteristic to some higher order network performance metric and/or a position within an environmental model. Measured RF channel characteristics for wireless devices are compared against the performance lookup tables to determine the sent of lookup tables that most closely match the measured RF channel characteristics. The positions within the environmental model corresponding to the selected set of matching lookup tables are identified as possible locations for the wireless device. The performance lookup tables are uniquely constructed by site-specific location, technology, wireless standard, and equipment types, and/or the current operating state of the communications network.