An apparatus and a method for RSS/AoA target 3-D localization in wireless networks and wireless sensor networks (WSNs), utilizing combined measurements of received signal strength (RSS) and angle of arrival (AoA) are disclosed herein. By using the spherical coordinate conversion and available AoA observations to establish new relationships between the measurements and the unknown target location, a simple closed-form solution is developed. The method disclosed herein has a straightforward adaptation to the case where the target's transmit power is also not known. A representative set of simulations and experiments verify the potential performance improvement realized with embodiments of the method for RSS/AoA target 3-D localization in wireless networks.