An apparatus and method for adaptively introducing a compensating signal latency related to a signal latency of a data symbol decision circuit. Adaptive timing control circuitry, including an interpolating mixer implemented as a tapped delay line with correlated tap coefficients, introduces a latency adaptively and substantially matching the latency of the data decision circuit for use within an adaptive equalizer, thereby minimizing the mean-squared error of such decision circuit. This adaptive latency is used in generating the feedback error signal which, in turn, can be used by the feedforward equalizer for dynamically adjusting its adaptive filter tap coefficients.