Embodiments of the present invention provide a method for establishing a communication connection between a STA and an access point. The method includes: receiving, by the AP, request frames sent by N STAs to the AP, where N is a natural number greater than or equal to 2; and after the AP receives the request frames sent by the N STAs, contending for a channel by the AP and sending one response frame to M STAs, where the response frame includes identifiers of the M STAs and M responses to the M STAs, each of the identifiers of the M STAs corresponds to one of the M responses, and the M identifiers and the M responses are used to instruct the M STAs to receive respective responses from the response frame sent by the AP, M is a natural number, and 2‰¤M‰¤N. By using the method, authentication response frames or association response frames for multiple STAs may be sent in one frame, thereby saving downlink resources.