Disclosed is a minimum mean square error (MMSE) equalizer and method for single-user detection of a signal received from a downlink code-division multiple access CDMA channel. The equalizer includes a Kalman filter having an input coupled to the received signal for generating a best linear unbiased estimate of a transmitted chip sequence for a single user. A reduced computational complexity Kalman filter embodiment is also disclosed that only periodically updates a Kalman filter prediction error covariance matrix P(k|k−1), a Kalman filter filtering error covariance matrix P(k|k) and the Kalman gain K(k).