This paper describes a structure of adaptive equalizer to improve reception performance of ATSC digital television (DTV) for 8-VSB receivers. There are many strong and dynamic echoes affecting reliable reception of DTV signal. Conventional DFE based least mean square (LMS) algorithm is readily implemented and has good Performance. There are still problems to be solved, however, in handling strong echoes and indoor reception. In this paper, structure of adaptive equalizer to mitigate these Problems in strong multipath interference conditions and indoor reception environment is first presented. Methods to reduce error propagation effects on DFE and initialization scheme of filter coefficients for fast convergence are then introduced. Computer simulation results prove that an adaptive equalizer with proposed design methods can combat with Brazil Ensemble and the Threshold of Visibility(TOV) is improved.