The use of Doppler wind lidars (DWL) for atmospheric research from ground, ship, and airborne platforms has increased with the number of available research and commercial DWL systems. Most of these systems implement either coherent (heterodyne) detection of aerosol backscatter or Fabry-Perot-based direct detection of molecular backscatter. We will describe the theory behind a new type of aerosol Doppler lidar, the Optical Autocovariance Wind Lidar (OAWL) and will present recent validation results from the Ball Aerospace OAWL system developed under the NASA Instrument Incubator Program (IIP) and internal funds. The OAWL currently operates at the 355 nm wavelength and is a key part of a potential path to an efficient, single-wavelength, space-based global wind observing system. Due to the flexible design, however, similar systems may be built to operate at multiple simultaneous wavelengths, thereby enabling the combination of wind measurements with high spectral resolution (HSRL) and/or differential absorption (DIAL) chemistry measurements for atmospheric flux studies.