The present invention provides a method and an apparatus performing device-to-device (D2D) communication in a wireless communication system. More particularly, D2D terminals supporting D2D communication are identified, discovery groups are formed for the D2D terminals using the same application, and discovery timing is established depending on the discovery group such that D2D terminals belonging to the same discovery group are shifted to an active state during the discovery timing in order to transceive signals by using time and frequency resources designated for D2D discovery with the discovery timing having a variable value depending on the discovery group.