Long-distance quantum communication via distant pairs of entangled quantum bits (qubits) is the first step towards technologies such as perfectly secure message transmission and distributed quantum computing. To date, the most promising proposals require quantum repeaters to mitigate the exponential decrease in communication rate due to optical fiber losses. However, quantum repeaters are exquisitely sensitive to the lifetimes of the memory elements they use. We propose a new approach based on a real-time hardware reconfiguration of multiplexed quantum nodes. This scheme should enable the construction of multiplexed quantum repeater networks that are largely insensitive to the coherence times of the quantum memory elements.