A hybrid PN code phase acquisition system based on a least-mean-square adaptive filter, interpreted as a channel estimator is proposed and analyzed for direct-sequence spread-spectrum systems under frequency selective Rayleigh fading channels. Closed form expressions are derived for the filter tap weights and detection/false alarm probabilities. Compared to previously proposed systems, the proposed system achieves smaller mean acquisition times, is more robust to the operating signal-to-noise ratio and allows for multiplication free tap weight updates.