As the wide spectrum range of Cerenkov luminescence light leads to an extremely diverse optical properties of tissues, the simplified spherical harmonics approximation or diffusion equation based imaging model cannot balance accuracy with effectiveness. The adaptive hybrid simplified spherical harmonics with diffusion equation model is applied as a forward model for multispectral Cerenkov fluorescence tomography. To provide the perfect balance between accuracy and efficiency, based on the tissues optical properties, the proposed model can adaptively select an approximate equation to describe the Cerenkov luminescence light propagation, and give full play to the advantages of traditional model. The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed model are validated with both regular geometries and digital mouse model based simulations. Corresponding results reveal that a comparable accuracy and much less computation time are achieved compared with the simplified spherical harmonics model, a much better accuracy compared with the diffusion equation as well as better adaptability than simple combined models of simplified spherical harmonics and diffusion equation. The adaptive hybrid simplified spherical harmonics with diffusion equation model model is best suited as an optical transmission model for multispectral Cerenkov fluorescence tomography.