Preamble for use within single user, multiple user, multiple access, and/or MIMO wireless communications. A selected preamble type is employed for use in generating a signal to be transmitted from one communication device to at least one other communication device. Depending upon a desired operational mode, as few as one preamble type, or two or more preamble types may be associated with a given operational mode. When operating in accordance with a given operational mode, a preamble type is selected from available preamble types of an operational mode. A preferred implementation may include two respective preamble types such that one preamble type is used for single user (SU) operation with transmit beamforming weights applied at the beginning of the packet or for open loop SU transmissions only, while the other preamble type, having an multiple user (MU) characteristic, is used for both SU beamforming and MU operations.