Embodiments of an apparatus and method for selective single-carrier (SC) equalization are provided. Multipath propagation in a communication channel often changes, and the severity of multipath propagation is often below worst case conditions supported by a SC communication device. When multipath propagation is less severe and below worst conditions, the use of frequency-domain equalization (FDE) in a SC receiver to mitigate ISI can be overkill and can result in excess power being consumed. The excess power consumption can be attributed to the general inability of the structure used to perform FDE to scale in terms of performance with channel conditions. Embodiments of the apparatus and method for performing selective equalization in a SC receiver allow either FDE or time-domain equalization (TDE) to be performed based on the current multipath propagation conditions of a communication channel. In general, TDE is used in place of FDE to conserve power when channel conditions permit.