Summary: Aimed at the existing problems of community detection in complex networks, a novel immune discrete differential evolution (IDDE) is proposed in the framework of standard differential evolution. In the proposed method, the initial population is generated through label propagation, and the discrete differential evolution strategy is utilized to ensure the global searching ability of the IDDE. Meanwhile, the high-frequency clonal selection mutation operation is applied to excellent individuals of the population to improve the local exploitation ability and the convergence performance of the IDDE. Artificial networks and several real networks are employed to test the performance of the IDDE, and the testing results show that the IDDE achieves better searching ability and stronger robustness, and that it can detect the community structure in complex networks effectively.