Multihop packet radio networking promises increased data rates and enhanced coverage in wireless networks. In this paper, we propose a new high performing low complexity multihop forwarding scheme, denoted multiuser diversity forwarding (MDF), that efficiently exploits inherent radio channel characteristics. The scheme is founded on a cross-layer paradigm, which enables a transmitting node to perform instant rate adaptation as well as to select among relays and among flows, thereby taking full advantage of the inherent multiuser diversity. The relative performance of MDF is benchmarked against two reference schemes, nearest with forward progress (NFP) and selection diversity forwarding (SDF). The simulations indicate that the proposed scheme yields a substantial throughput increase.