A clock and data recovery device receives a serial data stream and produces recovered clock and data signals. The clock and data recovery device operates over a range of frequencies and without use an external reference clock. A reference clock generator supplies a reference clock signal to a clock and data recovery module that uses the reference clock as a tuning or reference signal to produce the recovered clock and recovered data signals. The reference clock generator modifies the reference clock signal so that its frequency corresponds, within a small tolerance, to the data rate of the serial data stream. The reference clock generator determines a beat frequency between a voltage-controlled oscillator clock signal and the data rate and adjusts the voltage-controlled oscillator frequency, from which the reference clock is generated, to lower the beat frequency below a divided down version of the voltage-controlled oscillator clock.