A system architecture which natively supports cross-layer design in a general sense is an essential prerequisite for enabling communication services in the future heterogeneous Internet. A multitude of cross-layer approaches ranging from clean slate designs to actual implementations of cross-layer links in the standard TCP/IP stack have been suggested during the last decade. Yet, there is no agreement on a systematic integration of cross-layering into the actual Internet architecture. In this article we present a Guided Cross-layering Framework and a roadmap for its deployment in the Internet. We elaborate its key issue of identifying functional invariants in the present communication model. The invariants are the clean protocol stubs of the current TCP/IP stack. We describe the concept of meta-protocols and a design-deployment methodology for the framework. Our main postulate that promises an acceptance of the proposed architecture is the evolutionary, market-driven transformation of the current Internet architecture. On the example of the new ICSP (Integrated Communication and Signaling Protocol) protocol, we demonstrate the integration of CARD (Candidate Access Router Discovery), MIP (Mobile IP), and SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) in our framework which jointly optimize the performance and economic utilities of a multi-cell wireless network operator and the end user.