This paper proposes a novel three-phase ac-dc buck-boost converter. The proposed converter uses four active switches, which are driven by only one control signal. This converter is operated in discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) by using the pulsewidth modulation (PWM) technique, and the control scheme very easily and simply achieves purely sinusoidal input current, high power factor, low total harmonic distortion of the input current and step-up/down output voltage. Also, the proposed converter provides a constant average current to the output capacitor and load in each switching period. Thus, the ripple component of sixth times line frequency will not appear in the output voltage. Therefore, a smaller output capacitor can be used in the proposed converter. Moreover, the steady-state analysis of voltage gain and boundary operating condition are presented. Also, the selections of inductor, output capacitor and input filter are depicted. Finally, a prototype circuit with simple control logic is implemented to illustrate the theoretical analysis.