Lifting N-dimensional Galois representations to characteristic zero

Let F be a number field, let N ≥ 3 be an integer, and let k be a finite field of characteristic ℓ. We show that if ρ:GF → GLN(k) is a continuous representation with image of ρ containing SLN(k) then, under moderate conditions at primes dividing ℓ∞, there is a continuous representation ρ:GF → GLN(W(k)) unramified outside finitely many primes with ρ ~ρ mod ℓ. Stronger results are presented for ρ:Gℚ → GL3(k).