Disclosed are various embodiments involving a two-step searcher for cell discovery. Multiple scrambling codes associated with multiple neighboring cells are obtained. Slot timing is obtained for a received signal based at least in part on a detection of primary synchronization peak energy in the received signal. One of the scrambling codes for decoding the received signal is identified based at least in part on testing multiple scrambling code hypotheses in parallel during an accumulation time period of the received signal in response to obtaining the slot timing.