Korea Aerospace Research Institute is performing 3 stage transonic axial compressor development program. This paper introduces design step of the compressor, the performance test results and its analysis. In the fore part of the paper, aerodynamic process of the 3 stage axial compressor is presented. To satisfy both of the mass flow and pressure rise, the compressor should rotate at a high rotational speed. Therefore the transonic flow field forms in the rotor stages and it is designed with a relatively high pressure rise per stage to satisfy its design target. The compressor stage consists of 3 stages, and the bulk pressure ratio is 2.5. The first stage is burdened with the highest pressure ratio and less pressure rises occur in the following stages. Also it is designed that tip Mach number of the first rotor row does not exceed 1.3, while the maximum relative Mach number in the rotor stage is between 1.3~1.4 to increase the compressor flow coefficient. The final design has been confirmed by iterating three dimensional CFD calculations to verify design target and some design intentions. In the latter part of the paper, its performance test processes and results are presented. The performance test result shows that the overall compressor performance targets; pressure ratio and efficiency are well achieved. The stator static pressure distributions show that the blade loading is gradually increasing from the downstream of the compressor.