Cognitive radio systems offer the opportunity to improve the spectrum utilization by detecting unused frequency bands while avoiding interference to primary users. This paper proposes a new algorithm for spectrum sensing, which is an energy detector using a hybrid (adaptive and fixed) threshold, in order to compensate the weak points of the existing energy detector in the distorted communication channel environment. Simulation results are presented which show that the performance of the new proposed scheme is better than the existing scheme using a fixed threshold or an adaptive threshold. Additionally, the performance is investigated in terms of several parameters such as the mobile speed and the probability of false alarms. The simulation results also show that the proposed algorithm makes the detector highly robust against fading, shadowing, and interference.