A system and method for providing resources to networked devices for participating in a peer-to-peer environment. In one embodiment, a peer computing system on a network may include one or more bootstrap nodes that may provide, to devices coupled to the network, mechanisms for accessing resources for participating in the peer-to-peer environment. The bootstrap nodes may be peer nodes. The resources may give the devices access to services each of which may implement peer-to-peer platform protocols. The devices may be pre-configured to access one or more predefined peer nodes for information on bootstrap nodes. Alternatively, devices may use a bootstrapping mechanism to locate bootstrap nodes on the network.