In this paper, we investigate a novel preamble channel estimation (CE) method based on the compressed sensing (CS) theory in the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing system with offset quadrature amplitude modulation (OQAM/OFDM) over a frequency selective fading channel. Most of the preamble based CE methods waste power by deploying the pilots in all the subcarriers. Inspired by the CS theory, we focus on using many fewer pilots than one of traditional CE methods and realize accurate reconstruction of the channel response. After describing and analyzing the concept of OQAM/OFDM and its traditional CE methods, we propose a novel channel estimation method based on CS that requires fewer pilots in the preamble, and we design the corresponding preamble pattern to meet the requirements of CS. Simulation results validate the efficiency and superior performance of the proposed method in wireless channel.