Embodiments of the present invention disclose a directional direction selection method, apparatus, and system. The method includes: sending L groups of pilots in an omnidirectional direction manner, where the L groups of pilots are received by UE by using L directional directions, and the L groups of pilots are used by the UE to switch to a directional direction with best channel quality in the L directional directions; sending, by a base station, S groups of pilots by using S directional directions respectively, where the S groups of pilots are in a one-to-one correspondence with the S directional directions, and the S groups of pilots are used by the UE to estimate channel quality corresponding to the S directional directions; determining, by the base station, an optimal directional direction in the S directional directions according to the channel quality corresponding to the S groups of pilots; and switching, by the base station, to the optimal directional direction in the S directional directions. In the embodiments of the present invention, an optimal directional direction corresponding to the UE when the base station uses omnidirectional directions is first determined, and then an optimal directional direction corresponding to the base station when the UE uses the optimal directional direction is determined, thereby reducing complexity to O ( M + N ).