An iterative joint Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) decision feedback equalizer and turbo decoder includes a turbo decoder portion and a decision feedback equalizer (DFE) portion. The DFE receives input signals and processes these input signals to generate an estimated symbol sequence that is communicated to the turbo decoder portion. The estimated symbol sequence is also communicated to the feedback portion of the DFE. The feedback portion of the DFE includes a symbol-by-symbol detector and a feedback filter. The soft decoder output values generated by the turbo decoder portion are communicated to the feedback portion of the DFE and are combined with the coded output as log likelihood ratio values in a multipass, iterative fashion whereby the equalizer and decoder are linked via iterative feedback to provide communication performance enhancement.