The present invention is directed to a system and method of performing a lookup, self-refreshing and prefetching against a DNS provider that includes a DNS cache and a DNS master. The DNS cache includes a set of address records which are presumptively fresh and the DNS master includes another set of address records which may be updated if their respective IP addresses are not deemed fresh or identified for update based on other factors. A hostname resolution request is first processed by the DNS cache and then by the DNS master to identify a valid IP address for a hostname. If no valid IP address is found, the DNS master retrieves a new IP address for the hostname from a third-party DNS server and then updates the addresses records in the DNS cache and master with the new IP address. Entries in the DNS master are updated from time to time increasing the likelihood that fresh addresses are predominately present and to update the DNS cache.