a method and apparatus for detecting a secondary synchronization signal, the method including: calculating a channel estimation compensation value of each sub-carrier of a Secondary Synchronization Signal (SSS) symbol in different Cyclic Prefix (CP) modes; obtaining-a coherent accumulative results of even half frames and odd half frames of each sub-carrier according to the channel estimation compensation value of each sub-carrier of said SSS symbol; generating a SSS sequence; obtaining an index of the SSS sequence corresponding to an over-threshold value of a first round detection, determining indexes composed of the SSS sequence used in a second round detection according to said index, using coherent accumulative results of all the sub-carriers in the even and odd half frames and SSS sequences of all the sub-carriers to obtain an over-threshold value of the second round detection; and obtaining a CP mode, and calculating a cell ID and a radio frame boundary.