A method for network coding includes generating a message matrix, where each column of the message matrix corresponds to one of K message packets and each element in a column of the message matrix corresponds to one of the symbols of the corresponding message packet. The method further includes generating a network code matrix to map the K message packets to N encoded packets, where any combination of K columns of the network code matrix is linearly independent and N is greater than K. The method also includes multiplying the message matrix by the network code matrix to generate a transmission matrix, where each column of the transmission matrix corresponds to an encoded packet for wireless transmission.