A method for adaptively managing pages in a cache memory with a variable workload comprises defining a cache memory; organizing the cache into disjoint lists of pages, wherein the lists comprise lists T.sub.1, T.sub.2, B.sub.1, and B.sub.2; maintaining a bit that is set to either "S" or "L" for every page in the cache, which indicates whether the bit has short-term utility or long-term utility; ensuring that each member page of T.sub.1 is marked either as "S" or "L", wherein each member page of T.sub.1 and B.sub.1 is marked as "S" and each member page of T.sub.2 and B.sub.2 is marked as "L"; and maintaining a temporal locality window parameter such that pages that are re-requested within a window are of short-term utility and pages that are re-requested outside the window are of long-term utility, wherein the cache comprises pages that are members of any of lists T.sub.1 and T.sub.2.