Distributed hash tables have recently become a useful building block for a variety of distributed applications. However, current schemes based upon consistent hashing require both considerable implementation complexity and substantial storage overhead to achieve desired load balancing goals. We argue in this paper that these goals can be achieved more simply and more cost-effectively. First, we suggest the direct application of the ``power of two choices'' paradigm, whereby an item is stored at the less loaded of two (or more) random alternatives. We then consider how associating a small constant number of hash values with a key can naturally be extended to support other load balancing methods, including work-stealing or work-shedding schemes, as well as providing natural fault-tolerance mechanisms.