Miniature Joule-Thomson refrigerators have been widely used for rapid cooling of infrared detectors, probes of cryosurgery, thermal cameras, missile homing head and guidance system, due to their special features of simple configuration, compact structure and rapid cool-down characteristics. The thermodynamic performance of J-T refrigerator highly depends on the hydraulic and heat transfer characteristics of the recuperative heat exchanger. The typical recuperative heat exchanger of the J-T refrigerator has the double helical tube and fin configuration. In this study, effectiveness-NTU approach was adopted to predict the thermodynamic behaviors of the heat exchanger for the J-T refrigerator. The thermodynamic properties from the REFPROP were used to account the real gas effects of the gas. The results show the effect of the operating conditions on the performance of the heat exchanger and refrigerator for the given heat exchanger. The influences of mass flow rate and the supply pressure on the effectiveness of heat exchanger and the ideal cooling capacity are discussed in details.