In the present paper we analyze a class of tensor-structured preconditioners for the multidimensional second-order elliptic operators in R d , d ≥ 2. For equations in a bounded domain, the construction is based on the rank-R tensor-product approximation of the elliptic resolvent B R ≈ (L − λI ) −1 , where L is the sum of univariate elliptic operators. We prove the explicit estimate on the tensor rank R that ensures the spectral equivalence. For equations in an unbounded domain, one can utilize the tensor-structured approximation of Green's kernel for the shifted Laplacian in R d , which is well developed in the case of nonoscillatory potentials. For the oscillating kernels e −iκ x / x , x ∈ R d , κ ∈ R + , we give constructive proof of the rank-O(κ) separable approximation. This leads to the tensor representation for the discretized 3D Helmholtz kernel on an n × n × n grid that requires only O(κ | log ε| 2 n) reals for storage. Such representations can be applied to both the 3D volume and boundary calculations with sublinear cost O(n 2 ), even in the case κ = O(n).Numerical illustrations demonstrate the efficiency of low tensor-rank approximation for Green's kernels e −λ x / x , x ∈ R 3 , in the case of Newton (λ = 0), Yukawa (λ ∈ R + ), and Helmholtz (λ = iκ, κ ∈ R + ) potentials, as well as for the kernel functions 1/ x and 1/ x d−2 , x ∈ R d , in higher dimensions d > 3. We present numerical results on the iterative calculation of the minimal eigenvalue for the d-dimensional finite difference Laplacian by the power method with the rank truncation and based on the approximate inverse B R ≈ (− ) −1 , with 3 ≤ d ≤ 50.