Abstract
A Wronskian formulation leading to rational solutions is presented for the Boussinesq equation. It involves third-order linear partial differential equations, whose representative systems are systematically solved. The resulting solutions formulas provide a direct but powerful approach for constructing rational solutions, positon solutions and complexiton solutions to the Boussinesq equation. Various examples of exact solutions of those three kinds are computed. The newly presented Wronskian formulation is different from the one previously presented by Li et al., which does not yield rational solutions.