Techniques for establishing and maintaining peer-to-peer (P2P) communication are described. In an aspect, P2P communication on an unlicensed spectrum may be established and maintained with network assistance. In one design, a user equipment (UE) may communicate with a wide area network (WAN) to establish P2P communication with at least one other UE on a first frequency band that is not licensed to the WAN. For example, the UE may receive an assignment of at least one frequency channel in the first frequency band for P2P communication. The UE may then communicate peer-to-peer with the other UE(s) on the at least one frequency channel. The UE may also communicate with the WAN to maintain P2P communication with the other UE(s), e.g., to switch to another frequency channel if necessary.