A communication circuit (10) and method updates an active link set list (50) in an asynchronous wireless communication system. In one embodiment, the communication circuit (10) may be a wireless device (600) or any other suitable communication device. The communication circuit (10) includes candidate reference link determination circuitry (30) to receive an active link set update message (60) and in response, to create the candidate list of reference links (20) from the active link set list (50). The candidate reference link determination circuitry (30) creates the candidate list of reference links based on, for example, an indication in the received active link set update message (60) to retain links from the active link set list (50).