A phase rotator corrects the IQ imbalance in a wireless transceiver. The phase rotator is a part of a compensation system that detects and separates reception impairment images from transmission impairment images. The disclosed phase rotator introduces a phase shift between the transmission channel and the reception channel without perturbing the phase mismatch and the gain mismatch in the reception path. The phase rotator includes a first local oscillation (LO) circuit that generates a first LO signal at a first carrier frequency and a second LO circuit that generates a second LO signal at a second carrier frequency that deviates from the first carrier frequency for a phase rotation period. The phase rotation period is sufficiently long such that the frequency deviation can introduce a prescribed phase shift between the first LO signal and the second LO signal.