How to use separate thread to perform http requests

I have an application that is performing HTTP Requests (specifically calling the FogBugz API) when the user clicks certain buttons. Right now, I am just creating a service when the application starts, and then calling different methods in that service to complete requests. However, when I do this, there is the usual hang in the UI thread. I have looked at AsyncTask, but am not sure it will do what I want to accomplish. Because I need to instantly parse the XML that the HTTP Request returns, I need to have a process that is able to return this data to the UI thread. Will ASyncTask be able to accomplish this, or is there some other way?

    public static InputStream makeRequest(String httpRequest)
    {
        In a separate thread, run HTTP Request, get back and process, return inputstream
    }

This method is called by several others to perform HttpRequests. Once the inputstream is returned, the other methods parse for specific information.