A method and system for supporting scrollable, updatable database queries is provided. In a preferred embodiment, a database engine receives a query request specifying the retrieval of data from a source table stored by the engine. The engine then generates a query table that contains references to rows of a source table that satisfy the query request. The engine then receives one or more retrieve requests requesting that data specified by the query be provided by the engine. For each retrieval request, the engine retrieves data from the source table using one Or more references from the query table.