Techniques to acquire and track a received signal instance (or multipath) based on one or more transmitted pilots. In an aspect, a frequency tracking loop is provided to acquire and track the multipath, and supports a number of loop modes (e.g., acquisition and tracking modes). Each loop mode may be associated with a respective frequency detector and a set of values for a set of elements in the loop. In another aspect, several frequency detectors are provided for deriving estimates of the frequency error in the downconversion of the multipath (e.g., from radio frequency to baseband). In one design, maximum likelihood estimates of the frequency error are derived based on the recovered pilot symbols. In another design, the frequency error estimates for the multipath are derived based on the frequency error estimated for each transmitted signal.