In general, techniques are described for performing load balancing across resources of a network device. In one example, upon receiving an initial packet, a load balancer module of the network device is configured to perform a lookup in a routing table based on a subscriber identifier associated with the initial packet, and determine whether a line card is pre-assigned to process the initial packet based at least in part on the lookup result. A packet forwarding engine is configured to when one of the line cards is pre-assigned, direct the initial packet to the pre-assigned line card, and, when one of the line cards is not pre-assigned, dynamically identify one of the line cards to process the initial packet based at least in part on header information of the initial packet, and direct the initial packet to the dynamically identified line card.