Provided are a method and an apparatus for deciding a channel quality indicator (CQI) in a wireless communication system. The method includes randomly generating CQI values encoded into genotypes to form an initial genetic group; evaluating fitnesses using the CQI values and a measured block error rate (BLER), and if the CQI value indicating the highest fitness is not within a range of the BLER, selecting a specific gene of genes of the initial genetic group to perform crossover and mutation operations; and repeating the crossover and mutation operations to allow a new genetic group generated by the crossover and mutation operations to be within the range of the BLER.