An intelligent automatic volume control technique (100) for a communication device is provided that takes a measurement of the background audio environment at the time a user manually selects the volume (102, 104). A user preference is established for the volume setting relative to the background audio level being experienced (106). The informational relationship is stored and used for automatic volume control (108). When the background noise changes (110), the automatic volume control makes an intelligent decision on changing the volume (116). The current background noise level, the initial user volume setting and the background noise level when that volume was set are all used in the volume change decision making process.