An apparatus and a method for acquiring initial synchronization in a wireless communication system based on Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) are provided. The apparatus includes a frame synchronizer for acquiring frame synchronization using a preamble signal, a first offset determiner for determining a first time offset and a first frequency offset based on the frame synchronization, a preamble identifier estimator for estimating a preamble identifier in a receive signal interpolated with the first time offset and the first frequency offset, and a second offset determiner for generating a first preamble signal and a first pilot signal corresponding to the preamble identifier, for derandomizing a preamble signal and a pilot signal, and for determining a second time offset and a second frequency offset. Thus, the initial synchronization acquisition time in a low Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) environment can be reduced.