A handover method and apparatus in a communication system are provided. A serving Base Station (BS) alternately receives a target BS indicator and a downlink (DL) channel status from a Mobile Station (MS) at intervals of predetermined frames in a BS switching period for handover of the MS. The serving BS determines whether to continue the handover according to a signal received in a frame corresponding to a second reception of the target BS indicator. The method and apparatus provide a detailed definition of operation parameters for a switching time between the serving BS and a target BS.