Techniques for supporting MIMO transmission with layer permutation are described. In one aspect, multiple codewords may be generated for transmission from multiple antennas (e.g., virtual antennas), with the number of codewords being less than the number of antennas. Each codeword may be mapped across the multiple antennas. Two codewords may be generated. For rank 3, the first codeword may be mapped to one layer (or one antenna on each subcarrier), and the second codeword may be mapped to two layers (or two antennas on each subcarrier). For rank 4, each codeword may be mapped to two layers. In another aspect, a base CQI indicative of an average signal quality may be determined. A delta CQI indicative of improvement over the average signal quality may also be determined. In yet another aspect, selection may be performed with different penalty factors for different ranks or number of codewords.