An application using a distributed hash table (DHT) with N nodes must choose a DHT protocol from the spectrum between O(1) lookup protocols and O(logN). However, various applications under different network churns require that an idea DHT would be adaptive in according with the churn rates. ROAD (routing on active and demand), a new lookup algorithm, adjusts itself to provide the best performance across a range of lookup delay and churn rates. The key challenges in the design of ROAD are the algorithms that construct the routing table’s size and decrease the delay. It will speed up the lookup process and reduce the service delay with the expressed routing table and power sorting multicast algorithm. Simulations show that ROAD maintains an efficient lookup delay versus churn rate tradeoff than the existing DHTs. ROAD should be expanded into a mechanism that provides some kinds of lookup services with a range of qualities of service through super-peers choosing methods.