Dispersion strengthened (DS) alloys are used in critical high temperature applications due to their excellent creep strength. Finer particles than in precipitation hardened (PH) alloys can be used due to the thermal stability of the dispersoids. During recent years, models for the creep strength in PH-alloys have been developed. They have successfully been able to describe the creep strength of austenitic stainless steels and copper alloys. These models are referred to as time controlled climb (TCC) because the time it takes a dislocation to climb across a particle plays a crucial role. In the paper, TCC is applied to DS-alloys for the first time. A copper alloy and a ferritic steel are considered. Many DS-alloy are associated with a threshold stress. It is demonstrated it can be computed from a dislocation density that is generated during the creep process. The commonly used Rösler-Arzt (RA) model (1990) is analyzed. Several proposals are made to allow the RA-model to be applied to a wider spectrum of applications.