diff --git a/scrapy/utils/iterators.py b/scrapy/utils/iterators.py
index bec985062..c215a0bdd 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/iterators.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/iterators.py
@@ -1,12 +1,11 @@
 import re
 import csv
 import logging
-
 try:
     from cStringIO import StringIO as BytesIO
 except ImportError:
     from io import BytesIO
-
+from io import StringIO
 import six
 
 from scrapy.http import TextResponse, Response
@@ -65,7 +64,7 @@ class _StreamReader(object):
             self._text, self.encoding = obj.body, obj.encoding
         else:
             self._text, self.encoding = obj, 'utf-8'
-        self._is_unicode = isinstance(self._text, unicode)
+        self._is_unicode = isinstance(self._text, six.text_type)
 
     def read(self, n=65535):
         self.read = self._read_unicode if self._is_unicode else self._read_string
@@ -102,7 +101,11 @@ def csviter(obj, delimiter=None, headers=None, encoding=None, quotechar=None):
     def _getrow(csv_r):
         return [to_unicode(field, encoding) for field in next(csv_r)]
 
-    lines = BytesIO(_body_or_str(obj, unicode=False))
+    # Python 3 csv reader input object needs to return strings
+    if six.PY3:
+        lines = StringIO(_body_or_str(obj, unicode=True))
+    else:
+        lines = BytesIO(_body_or_str(obj, unicode=False))
 
     kwargs = {}
     if delimiter: kwargs["delimiter"] = delimiter
diff --git a/tests/py3-ignores.txt b/tests/py3-ignores.txt
index 55ed75c92..015578e1e 100644
--- a/tests/py3-ignores.txt
+++ b/tests/py3-ignores.txt
@@ -16,7 +16,6 @@ tests/test_pipeline_files.py
 tests/test_pipeline_images.py
 tests/test_proxy_connect.py
 tests/test_spidermiddleware_httperror.py
-tests/test_utils_iterators.py
 tests/test_utils_template.py
 tests/test_webclient.py
 
diff --git a/tests/test_utils_iterators.py b/tests/test_utils_iterators.py
index 8dceed7cc..de103fea5 100644
--- a/tests/test_utils_iterators.py
+++ b/tests/test_utils_iterators.py
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
 import os
+import six
 from twisted.trial import unittest
 
 from scrapy.utils.iterators import csviter, xmliter, _body_or_str, xmliter_lxml
@@ -148,7 +149,7 @@ class XmliterTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
         body = b'<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-9"?>\n<xml>\n    <item>Some Turkish Characters \xd6\xc7\xde\xdd\xd0\xdc \xfc\xf0\xfd\xfe\xe7\xf6</item>\n</xml>\n\n'
         response = XmlResponse('http://www.example.com', body=body)
         self.assertEqual(
-            self.xmliter(response, 'item').next().extract(),
+            next(self.xmliter(response, 'item')).extract(),
             u'<item>Some Turkish Characters \xd6\xc7\u015e\u0130\u011e\xdc \xfc\u011f\u0131\u015f\xe7\xf6</item>'
         )
 
@@ -238,11 +239,11 @@ class UtilsCsvTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
 
         # explicit type check cuz' we no like stinkin' autocasting! yarrr
         for result_row in result:
-            self.assert_(all((isinstance(k, unicode) for k in result_row.keys())))
-            self.assert_(all((isinstance(v, unicode) for v in result_row.values())))
+            self.assert_(all((isinstance(k, six.text_type) for k in result_row.keys())))
+            self.assert_(all((isinstance(v, six.text_type) for v in result_row.values())))
 
     def test_csviter_delimiter(self):
-        body = get_testdata('feeds', 'feed-sample3.csv').replace(',', '\t')
+        body = get_testdata('feeds', 'feed-sample3.csv').replace(b',', b'\t')
         response = TextResponse(url="http://example.com/", body=body)
         csv = csviter(response, delimiter='\t')
 
@@ -254,7 +255,7 @@ class UtilsCsvTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
 
     def test_csviter_quotechar(self):
         body1 = get_testdata('feeds', 'feed-sample6.csv')
-        body2 = get_testdata('feeds', 'feed-sample6.csv').replace(",", '|')
+        body2 = get_testdata('feeds', 'feed-sample6.csv').replace(b',', b'|')
 
         response1 = TextResponse(url="http://example.com/", body=body1)
         csv1 = csviter(response1, quotechar="'")
@@ -286,7 +287,7 @@ class UtilsCsvTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
                           {u"'id'": u"4",   u"'name'": u"'empty'",   u"'value'": u""}])
 
     def test_csviter_delimiter_binary_response_assume_utf8_encoding(self):
-        body = get_testdata('feeds', 'feed-sample3.csv').replace(',', '\t')
+        body = get_testdata('feeds', 'feed-sample3.csv').replace(b',', b'\t')
         response = Response(url="http://example.com/", body=body)
         csv = csviter(response, delimiter='\t')
 
@@ -298,10 +299,10 @@ class UtilsCsvTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
 
     def test_csviter_headers(self):
         sample = get_testdata('feeds', 'feed-sample3.csv').splitlines()
-        headers, body = sample[0].split(','), '\n'.join(sample[1:])
+        headers, body = sample[0].split(b','), b'\n'.join(sample[1:])
 
         response = TextResponse(url="http://example.com/", body=body)
-        csv = csviter(response, headers=headers)
+        csv = csviter(response, headers=[h.decode('utf-8') for h in headers])
 
         self.assertEqual([row for row in csv],
                          [{u'id': u'1', u'name': u'alpha',   u'value': u'foobar'},
@@ -311,7 +312,7 @@ class UtilsCsvTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
 
     def test_csviter_falserow(self):
         body = get_testdata('feeds', 'feed-sample3.csv')
-        body = '\n'.join((body, 'a,b', 'a,b,c,d'))
+        body = b'\n'.join((body, b'a,b', b'a,b,c,d'))
 
         response = TextResponse(url="http://example.com/", body=body)
         csv = csviter(response)