Techniques to perform selective channel inversion per eigenmode in a MIMO system to achieve high spectral efficiency while reducing complexity at both the transmitter and receiver are presented. The available transmission channels are arranged into a number of groups, where each group may include all transmission channels (or frequency bins) for a respective eigenmode of a MIMO channel. The total transmit power is allocated to the groups using a particular group power allocation scheme. Selective channel inversion is then performed independently for each group selected for use for data transmission. For each such group, one or more transmission channels in the group are selected for use, and a scaling factor is determined for each selected channel such that all selected channels for the group achieve similar received signal quality (e.g., received SNR).