Bart Busschots of http://bartb.ie helped me figure out this configuration that so many people are requesting. Bart’s diagram shows the end condition. The screenshots in the tutorial are from an Actiontec router supplied by Verizon running firmware version 40.20.7 in 2013.

In this tutorial we’re going to:

Turn off Wireless on the Verizon router

Change the IP range that the Verizon router serves out to start at 192.168.1.10

Enable the DMZ on the Verizon router and set it to 192.168.1.2

Set the Airport Extreme to static IP and assign it to 192.168.1.2

This combination of steps will allow the Airport Extreme to control your home network serving out IP addresses, and to execute port forwarding (without having to also do that on the Verizon router).