In the context of acoustic or elastic wave propagation, the non-periodic asymptotic homogenization method allows one to determine a smooth effective medium and equations associated with the wave propagation in a given complex elastic or acoustic medium down to a given minimum wavelength. By smoothing all discontinuities and fine scales of the original medium, the homogenization technique considerably reduces meshing difficulties as well as the numerical cost associated with the wave equation solver, while producing the same waveform as for the original medium (up to the desired accuracy). Nevertheless, finding the effective medium requires one to solve the so-called ``cell problem'', which corresponds to an elasto-static equation with a finite set of distinct loadings. For general elastic or acoustic media, the cell problem is a large problem that has to be solved on the whole domain and its resolution implies the use of a finite element solver and a mesh of the fine scale medium. Even if solving the cell problem is simpler than solving the wave equation in the original medium (because it is time and source independent, based on simple tetrahedral meshes and embarrassingly parallel) it is still a challenge. In this work, we present an alternative method to the finite element approach for solving the cell problem. It is based on a well-known method designed by H. Moulinec and P. Suquet in 1998 in structural mechanics. This iterative technique relies on Green functions of a simple reference medium and extensively uses Fast Fourier Transforms. It is easy to implement, very efficient and relies on a simple regular gridding of the medium. Through examples we show that the method gives excellent results, even, under some conditions, for discontinuous media.