Techniques for supporting relay communication with subframe staggering are described. For subframe staggering, subframes of different relays are staggered from one another, which can increase the number of potential backhaul subframes. In one design, a first relay determines its access subframes and backhaul subframes, which correspond to different non-overlapping subsets of the subframes of the first relay. The first relay communicates with at least one UE during the access subframes and communicates with a base station during the backhaul subframes. The subframes of the first relay are offset from the subframes of a second relay communicating with the base station. In one design, the access subframes of the first relay includes all subframes with either even or odd indices, which can support data transmission with HARQ. In one design, at least one access subframe corresponds to at least one reserved subframe having reduced transmit power from the base station.