diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.18.0.txt b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.18.0.txt
index 75a38544fb8eb..bbb86571aa51e 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.18.0.txt
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.18.0.txt
@@ -152,6 +152,7 @@ Other enhancements
 - ``Series`` gained an ``is_unique`` attribute (:issue:`11946`)
 - ``DataFrame.quantile`` and ``Series.quantile`` now accept ``interpolation`` keyword (:issue:`10174`).
 - ``DataFrame.select_dtypes`` now allows the ``np.float16`` typecode (:issue:`11990`)
+- ``pivot_table()`` now accepts most iterables for the ``values`` parameter (:issue:`12017`)
 
 .. _whatsnew_0180.enhancements.rounding:
 
diff --git a/pandas/tools/pivot.py b/pandas/tools/pivot.py
index 7a04847947bf2..120a30199e522 100644
--- a/pandas/tools/pivot.py
+++ b/pandas/tools/pivot.py
@@ -94,8 +94,9 @@ def pivot_table(data, values=None, index=None, columns=None, aggfunc='mean',
 
     values_passed = values is not None
     if values_passed:
-        if isinstance(values, (list, tuple)):
+        if com.is_list_like(values):
             values_multi = True
+            values = list(values)
         else:
             values_multi = False
             values = [values]
diff --git a/pandas/tools/tests/test_pivot.py b/pandas/tools/tests/test_pivot.py
index d303f489d9dea..2720350afb9fe 100644
--- a/pandas/tools/tests/test_pivot.py
+++ b/pandas/tools/tests/test_pivot.py
@@ -736,6 +736,25 @@ def test_pivot_dtaccessor(self):
                              index=['X', 'Y'], columns=exp_col)
         tm.assert_frame_equal(result, expected)
 
+    def test_pivot_table_with_iterator_values(self):
+        # GH 12017
+        aggs = {'D': 'sum', 'E': 'mean'}
+
+        pivot_values_list = pd.pivot_table(
+            self.data, index=['A'], values=list(aggs.keys()), aggfunc=aggs,
+        )
+
+        pivot_values_keys = pd.pivot_table(
+            self.data, index=['A'], values=aggs.keys(), aggfunc=aggs,
+        )
+        tm.assert_frame_equal(pivot_values_keys, pivot_values_list)
+
+        agg_values_gen = (value for value in aggs.keys())
+        pivot_values_gen = pd.pivot_table(
+            self.data, index=['A'], values=agg_values_gen, aggfunc=aggs,
+        )
+        tm.assert_frame_equal(pivot_values_gen, pivot_values_list)
+
 
 class TestCrosstab(tm.TestCase):