An apparatus and method for channel estimation decrease overhead and hardware complexity while supporting both Wiener-type channel estimation and Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filtering/Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) filtering in a wireless communication system. The apparatus includes a storage unit for storing coefficient sets for a plurality of channel estimation types. A controller selects one of the plurality of channel estimation types according to at least one of a type of a pilot signal and a reliability value of a channel parameter. An N-tap filter, including N multipliers and (N−1) adders, determines channel estimation values of data tones by using the coefficient sets for the selected channel estimation type.