A method and apparatus for chroma intra prediction for a current chroma block with reduced line memory requirement are disclosed. The chroma intra predictor is derived from reconstructed luma pixels of a current luma block using a model with parameters. In various embodiments according to the present invention, the derivation of the parameters relies on a reconstructed luma pixel set corresponding to neighboring reconstructed luma pixels from causal luma neighboring areas of the current luma block, wherein said causal luma neighboring areas include a first area corresponding to reconstructed luma pixels above a horizontal luma block boundary on a top side of the current luma block, and wherein the reconstructed luma pixels from the first area that are included in the reconstructed luma pixel set are from a luma pixel line immediately above the horizontal luma block boundary.