A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three leptons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 20.3 fb−1 of s√ = 8 TeV proton-proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with the Standard Model expectations and limits are set in R-parity-conserving phenomenological Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Models and in simplified supersymmetric models, significantly extending previous results. For simplified supersymmetric models of direct chargino (χ˜±1) and next-to-lightest neutralino (χ˜02) production with decays to lightest neutralino (χ˜01) via either all three generations of sleptons, staus only, gauge bosons, or Higgs bosons, (χ˜±1) and (χ˜02) masses are excluded up to 700 GeV, 380 GeV, 345 GeV, or 148 GeV respectively, for a massless (χ˜01)