Constant modulus transforms like discrete Fourier transform (DFT), Walsh transform, and Gold codes have been successfully used over several decades in several engineering applications, including discrete multi-tone (DMT), orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and code division multiple access (CDMA) communications systems. In this paper, we present a generalized framework for DFT called Generalized DFT (GDFT) with nonlinear phase by exploiting the phase space. We show that GDFT offers sizable correlation improvements over DFT, Walsh, Oppermann and Gold codes, leading to better performance in all multi-carrier communications scenarios investigated. We also highlight how known constant modulus orthogonal transforms are special solutions of the proposed GDFT framework. Moreover, we introduce practical design methods offering computationally efficient implementations of GDFT as enhancements to DFT. We conclude the paper with examples of communications applications where GDFT is shown to outperform DFT and other known constant modulus bases.