The use of ”cognitive radio” (CR) technology is viewed as the key technology to fully utilize the bandwidth. In this paper, a CR-based dynamic spectrum access (DSA) algorithm is proposed for CR systems downlink transmission. On unlicensed spectrum used for WLAN system, the proposed method can detect the idle state of WLAN system and perform IEEE 802.16h protocol to access the spectrum. Therefore, the CR system can improve the spectrum utilization by downlink transmission during WLAN idle periods.