IPv6 traffic may be carried through an MPLS IPv4 network without the use of IPv6-over-IPv4 tunneling. This provides great savings in overhead, signaling, and state information storage and also allows for routing through the MPLS IPv4 network to adjust in response to changes in network state. In one embodiment, an edge node of an MPLS IPv4 network resolves a destination IPv6 network of a received IPv6 packet to an MPLS label switched path. The resolution exploits received inter-domain routing information. This information identifies the IPv4 address of an egress node that is usable as a gateway to the destination network. Within the inter-domain routing information, the IPv4 address may be encoded in IPv6 format.