A new receding horizon approach to the linear regulator problem is presented. At each instant of time, the control strategy is based on the minimization of a quadratic performance index extending over an interval of fixed length into the future. Connections with standard results are discussed and, under general assumptions, the closed-loop system is shown to be asymptotically stable. A potential advantage of our method lies in the fact that a singular perturbation analysis is well posed. This indicates that, for plants containing slow and fast modes, the design procedure can be split up into two stages. The resulting composite control exhibits attractive engineering properties. Use and effectiveness of the proposed techniques are demonstrated by investigating a practical example.