Abstract One of the most common challenges faced by the dental professionals is resorbed alveolar ridges which can be in horizontal and vertical dimension . Alveolar distraction osteogenesis is one of the mode of treatment for improving the deficient areas of alveolar ridges. Alveolar distraction osteogenesis is biological process which involves progressive incremental traction between the vascularized bone segments in order to gain new bone formation. Osteotomy is usually performed which is followed by placing a osteo-distractor device which controls the separation process. By using this technique, the use of bone graft can be avoided as it produce same character and morphology of bone. It results into growth of the soft tissue with development of new bone on deficient ridge. As bone height is restored by this technique ,it is feasible to place longer dental implants. This review discuss about ride augmentation and various procedure which are performed to restore resorbed alveolar ridge. It emphasize on importance of alveolar distraction osteogenesis with some history of the technique on the basis of evidences available. To conclude, distraction osteogenesis is an efficient method to restore the alveolar ridge height for better adaptability of dental implants.