Systems and methods for providing distributed Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) in a wireless communication system are described herein. In one embodiment, a relay station interconnects a base station of the wireless communication system and one or more mobile stations. A first ARQ process is performed for a first connection between the base station and the relay station. A separate second ARQ process is performed for a second connection between the relay station and a mobile station. In this manner, rather than having end-to-end ARQ between the base station and the mobile station, a distributed ARQ process is provided.