Techniques for performing system selection and acquisition are described. In one design, a terminal may obtain at least one system record for at least one system utilizing orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) or single-carrier frequency division multiplexing (SC-FDM). Each system record may include system identification information for an associated system and an index for an associated acquisition record. The terminal may also obtain at least one acquisition record for the at least one system. Each acquisition record may include at least one value for at least one configurable system parameter, e.g., FFT size, cyclic prefix length, number of guard subcarriers, etc. The terminal may perform acquisition for the at least one system in accordance with the at least one system record and the at least one acquisition record. The system and acquisition records may be stored in a Preferred Roaming List (PRL) or a Most Recently Used (MRU) list.