An adaptive hierarchical lapped orthogonal transform (HLOT) exciser is proposed for tracking, localizing, and rejecting the nonstationary interference in direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) communications. The method is based on HLOT. It utilizes a fast dynamic programming algorithm to search for the best basis, which matches the interference structure best, in a library of lapped orthogonal bases. The adaptive HLOT differs from conventional block transform and the more advanced modulated lapped transform (MLT) in that the former produces arbitrary time-frequency tiling, which can be adapted to the signal structure, while the latter yields fixed tilings. The time-frequency tiling of the adaptive HLOT can be time varying, so it is also able to track the variations of the signal time-frequency structure. Simulation results show that the proposed exciser brings significant performance improvement in the presence of nonstationary time-localized interference with or without instantaneous frequency (IF) information compared with the existing block transform domain excisers. Also, the proposed exciser is effective in suppressing narrowband interference and combined narrowband and time-localized impulsive interference.