A system and method for communicating information in a wireless cooperative relay network of nodes, the nodes including a source, a set of relays, and a destination. The source broadcasts a code word encoded as a data stream using a rateless code. The relays receive the data stream, decode the data stream to recover the code word, and reencode and transmit the recovered code word as the data stream with the rateless code. The destination receives and decodes the reencoded data streams to recover the code word.