  We show that inflation can naturally occur at a finite temperature T>H that
is sustained by dissipative effects, when the inflaton field corresponds to a
pseudo Nambu-Goldstone boson of a broken gauge symmetry. Similarly to "Little
Higgs" scenarios for electroweak symmetry breaking, the flatness of the
inflaton potential is protected against both quadratic divergences and the
leading thermal corrections. We show that, nevertheless, nonlocal dissipative
effects are naturally present and are able to sustain a nearly thermal bath of
light particles despite the accelerated expansion of the Universe. As an
example, we discuss the dynamics of chaotic warm inflation with a quartic
potential and show that the associated observational predictions are in very
good agreement with the latest Planck results. This model constitutes the first
realization of warm inflation requiring only a small number of fields; in
particular, the inflaton is directly coupled to just two light fields.
