Provided are a synchronization apparatus and method for improving timing estimation performance in an OFDM-FDMA/CDMA/TDMA system, which can correctly estimate symbol timing through a more correct timing metric using a guard interval of a preamble. The synchronization apparatus includes an auto-correlator for calculating an auto-correlation value of a received signal and a signal delayed by a predetermined time, a power detector for calculating power of the received signal, a timing metric/normalizer for normalizing the auto-correlation value by dividing the auto-correlation value by the calculated power to obtain a timing metric, and a peak detector for finding a peak value of the timing metric to estimate a frame starting position and an initial symbol timing. The auto-correlator calculates an auto-correlation length as long as a length of a guard interval, considering the preamble characteristic that the patterns are repeated in the time domain. The initial symbol timing is set to a position determined by adding the position where the timing metric has a peak value to the length of the guard interval and subtracting the maximum value of the expected channel delay spread from the result value.