Tunable dispersion compensator with minimum differential group delay

In a method and system for providing dispersion compensation in an optical system, there is coupled into the optical system at least one pathway into which there is connected a tunable chirped fiber Bragg grating, each such grating providing a respective tunable amount of dispersion. At least one respective DGD element is connected into the respective pathway for each such grating. The set of all such respective DGD elements in a given pathway introduces a bias differential group delay DGD (bias) having an absolute value that, for at least one tuning value of the grating, is substantially equal to differential group delay introduced by the grating.