Simple dig output?
On the CentOS box I have to hand
dig +short www.google.com
74.125.132.147
74.125.132.99
74.125.132.103
74.125.132.104
74.125.132.105
74.125.132.106
If you only want one address then
dig +short www.google.com | head -1
or
dig +short www.google.com | tail -1
sed is a viable option and outright rejecting it is misguided at best.
Anyway, try
dig -t A +noall +answer www.google.com | cut -f 6 | tail -1