A new real-time, digital adaptive multiuser receiver structure is proposed for the uplink in a mobile communications system employing code division multiple access (CDMA). The receiver efficiently implements the decorrelating detector of Lupas and Verdu (1989) and can be adapted to incorporate decision feedback to further improve the detector performance. While the basic receiver design is presented for synchronous CDMA over AWGN channels, experimental evaluation of the receiver for the asynchronous case verifies its robustness for cases when the relative user delays are small compared to the symbol duration as in microcellular scenarios. An efficient decorrelating RAKE combiner for frequency-selective multipath channels is also proposed and analyzed. Performance evaluation of the detector via computer simulation scenarios is conducted in support of analytical results to substantiate its potential for real-time operation.>