This dissertation provides a comprehensive analysis of the coding-spreading tradeoff problem in finite-sized synchronous DS-CDMA systems. In contrast to the large system which has a large number of users, the finite-sized system refers to a system with a small number of users. Much work has been performed in the past on the analysis of the spectral efficiency of synchronous DS-CDMA systems and the associated coding-spreading tradeoff problem. However, most of the analysis is based on the large-system assumptions. In this dissertation, we focused on finite-sized systems with the help of numerical methods and Monte-Carlo simulations.Binary-input achievable information rates for finite-sized synchronous DS-CDMA systems with different detection/decoding schemes on AWGN channel are numerically calculated for various coding/spreading apportionments. We use these results to determine the existence and value of an optimal code rate for a number of different multiuser receivers, where optimality is in the sense of minimizing the SNR required for reliable multiuser communication. Our results are consistent with the well-known fact that all coding (no spreading) is optimal for the maximum a posteriori receiver.Simulations of the LDPC-coded synchronous DS-CDMA systems with iterative multiuser detection/decoding and MMSE multiuser detection/single-user decoding are also presented to show that the binary-input capacities can be closely approached with practical schemes. The coding-spreading tradeoff is examined using these LDPC code simulation results, where agreement with the information-theoretic results is demonstrated.We extend our work to the DS-CDMA systems on two idealized Rayleigh flat-fading channels: the chip-level flat-fading (CLFF) and the (code) symbol-level flat-fading (SLFF). These models represent ideal fast fading and slow fading channels, respectively. Both information-theoretic results and LDPC code simulation results are presented to show the effects of channel fading on system performance and the coding-spreading tradeoff. It is shown that fast fading can be beneficial to system performance under the condition of perfect channel state information at receiver, but slow fading is very harmful. Slow fading also increases the importance of coding greatly, compared to the AWGN and fast fading.Finally, we present some comparisons with large-system results on AWGN and CLFF channels, which show both consistencies and discrepancies.