A wireless local area network (WLAN) mobile station (110, 112, 114) has an application processor core (204) and a WLAN processor (202). So as to conserve energy, when the two processors are not needed, they are both placed in a minimal power consumption mode. The WLAN processor operates a WLAN radio and receives beacon transmissions from an access point (120). Upon extracting the beacon data from a received beacon signal, the WLAN processor passes the beacon data to the application processor. To ensure receipt of the beacon data, the WLAN processor remains active until the application processor acknowledges receipt of the beacon data before transitioning back to a sleep mode. To prevent keeping the WLAN processor waiting longer than necessary, the application processor wakes up ahead of the beacon receipt time, in time to allow transition to an awake mode so that it is active by the time the WLAN processor passes the beacon data.