A network's transmission capacity is the maximal rate of traffic inflow that the network can handle without causing congestion. Here we study how to enhance this quantity by allocating resource to individual nodes while preserving the total amount of the resource available. We propose a practical and effective scheme which redistributes node capability based on the local knowledge of node connectivity. We show that our scheme enhances the transmission capacity of networks with heterogeneous structures by up to two orders of magnitude. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.