In this paper we propose a fast, robust, and accurate operator splitting method for phase-field simulations of dendritic growth in both two- and three-dimensional space. The proposed method is based on operator splitting techniques. We split the governing phase-field equation into three parts: the first equation is calculated by using an explicit Euler's method. The second is a heat equation with a source term and is solved by a fast solver such as a multigrid method. The third is a nonlinear equation and is evaluated using a closed form solution. We also present a set of representative numerical experiments for crystal growth simulation to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method. Our simulation results are also consistent with previous numerical experiments. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.