A home gateway for adapting a Universal Serial Bus (USB) modem includes a system drive module; a wide area network (WAN) connection management module; a drive adaption module, which determines the mode of the USB modem, adapts a drive of an application layer interface of the USB modem and transmits a drive adaption complete message to an application adaption module; and the application adaption module, which selects a corresponding initialization process, initializes an application layer of the USB modem, transmits an initialization complete message to the WAN connection management module and performs a network connection via the WAN interface management module. A method for adapting the USB modem is also disclosed. The home gateway and method can reduce the economic burden of users, and facilitate the popularization of home gateway products and a wireless net surfing service via the USB modem.