Channel impulse response (CIR) can be estimated on the basis of cyclic correlation in time-domain for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. This article proposes a generalized channel estimation method to reduce the estimation error by taking the average of different CIRs. Channel impulse responses are derived according to the different starting points of cyclic correlation. In addition, an effective CIR length estimation algorithm is also presented. The whole proposed methods are more effective to OFDM systems, especially to those with longer cyclic prefix. The analysis and the simulation results verify that the mean square error performance is 4-5 dB better than the conventional schemes under the same conditions.